


The Otonokizaka High School Magic Club

by PartialFractions



Category: Love Live! School Idol Project, ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 | JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken | JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
Genre: Action/Adventure, Comedy, F/F, Minor Violence, Multi, Nobody Dies, Slice of Life, Stands, Yuri
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2018-11-05 03:01:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 28,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11004594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PartialFractions/pseuds/PartialFractions
Summary: Kousaka Honoka has a brilliant plan to save her school from closing down.No, it's not idols; it's Stands.Hey, where are you going?Also I tried turning the yuri undertones into actual yuri. We'll see how that goes.





	1. Honoka's Bizarre Plan

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone is canonically speaking Japanese in this fic (shocking, I know), but do not worry; it is written entirely in English.
> 
> Names will be translated as-is, with both order and honourifics kept intact. The official name spellings will be used instead of what they "should" be according to typical Romaji translations (so no Eri).
> 
> Everything else will be written in English so I apologize in advance for not keeping the subtleties of which familial honourifics family members use to refer to one-another. If you speak Japanese (spoilers, I do not) I also apologize if there would not actually be a way to say what I wrote down in Japanese without sounding weird.

Kousaka Honoka was in a sour mood. The symptoms of this sour mood consisted of Honoka lying slumped over her desk, eyes closed, frowning, and not really paying attention to what the teacher was saying at the moment. In other words, to the casual observer Honoka’s sour mood was indistinguishable from her regular mood except for the frown on her face.

However, Sonoda Umi was not a casual observer. She also was not currently a visual observer, what with being seated ahead of Honoka. She was a long-time friend of Honoka who had spent more than enough time sitting ahead and to the right of her to be able to tell in what mood Honoka was merely from the sounds emanating from her general direction. For example, right now her breathing was slower than usual, but not deep enough to indicate she was asleep. Therefore, she must have been deep in thought, or at least what passed for thought for Honoka. Moreover, there was a bit of moroseness to her breathing (Honoka had called Umi’s ability to detect things like this creepy on multiple occasions), so she was probably deep in thought about something other than food.

The teacher called on Umi to answer a question, and she did so (perfectly, she might add), because it was indeed possible to be listening to her friend and also be paying attention to the teacher at the same time, thank you very much. Of course, one would not believe this claim if one only observed Honoka, who was very much lost in her own little world. Honoka could only do one thing at a time, and it appeared right now she had picked moping over paying attention to the lesson. Umi could tell Honoka was not paying attention because she did not hear any sign of Honoka’s pencil being used to write anything down at the moment.

Umi would have to scold her for that later.

Umi understood why Honoka was so glum; the announcement that the school would be closing down in three years was not one Umi considered worth celebrating either. However, Umi was getting tired of Honoka’s coasting attitude towards her own education, and she felt that the type of person who was confused by the concept of the cosine function should not spend half of the class ignoring what was being written on the blackboard. Umi had spent all of March trying to instill a desire in Honoka to change her approach to schooling to something other than her historic approach. Sleeping through the lessons, panic-cramming before tests, and just barely squeezing through her classes with passing grades through what Umi could only consider were either miracles or reality-warping powers (beyond the reality-warping powers Honoka already possessed) could only last for so long.

Either way, if any of the things Umi had been trying to drill into Honoka’s head were going to amount to anything, Honoka needed to actually participate in class. Therefore, Umi would make sure to chastise Honoka properly. This was for Honoka’s own good, so Umi tried to assure herself that she felt no sense of guilt over it, no matter how much the idea of making Honoka even sadder on a day like today (and the first day of the new term to boot) hurt her.

Maybe Umi would offer to get Honoka some bread if she beat the class average on the first assignment; it would be a form of positive reinforcement. Being the tyrant of the group was tiring, so why not do something that would put a smile on Honoka’s face?

Making Honoka happy _and_ improving her grades: Umi liked the sound of that, though if push came to shove she would always fall back on the tried-and-true method of tongue-lashing.

Suddenly, Honoka’s breathing shifted. It was subtle, but it became more focused. Umi was almost ready to delude herself into thinking Honoka might actually be absorbing some of what the teacher was saying, but this was a particularly dry part of the lesson, so Umi quickly dismissed the thought. Honoka was definitely focusing on something other than the course material; Umi idly wondered what it was.

It was unlikely to be the usual idiotic Honoka-approved daydream topic like what she had eaten for breakfast or what she would eat for lunch (or for supper, or for breakfast tomorrow, or for her thrice-weekly midnight snack). Honoka only daydreamed about food when she was in a good mood. It could be some hare-brained plan to save the school in some absurdly contrived fashion, considering what had been plaguing her mind all morning. In fact, knowing Honoka, Umi was willing to bet that the thought had at least crossed her mind at some point.

It was fully within Umi’s power to figure out exactly what Honoka was thinking at that moment without disturbing much of the class and without deviating (much) of her attention from about what the teacher was droning on. Unfortunately, it was essentially impossible to do so without immediately alerting Honoka. Normally, Umi would not care if Honoka noticed her attempting to probe what little there was in her mind (she was usually fine with it anyway), but Honoka was probably not in the mood for shenanigans.

And so, Umi would wait the requisite half-hour before class ended to sate her curiosity as to what thoughts could be running around in Honoka’s usually-barren brain: she would simply ask Honoka what she had been thinking about in class come break.

However, as though prompted by Umi thinking about it, she heard Honoka jot something down (quite quickly, so it was probably written in unreadable chicken scratch with kana overlapping other kana) on a piece of paper. She heard movement in Honoka’s seat, and she then heard a soft noise come from the seat behind her. It appeared Minami Kotori had been wrangled into Honoka’s machinations.

It was a rather dramatic way to put _Honoka passed Kotori a note_ , but one that fit. Umi was not expecting the note to eventually be meant for her (passing a note to Umi would just alert Umi to the fact Honoka was not doing anything productive), so she started a bit when she felt Kotori press the paper into her back. She was tempted to ignore it, but Honoka probably considered it important if she was willing to risk a chewing out for passing notes in class from both the teacher and Umi herself. Umi reached behind her and snatched the note from Kotori’s (very soft) hands.

Umi quickly and discreetly unfolded the note and read it. It took her longer than it should have taken her to read it because Honoka’s script was about as refined as if she had chiseled the message into a tree with a spoon, but she did get the entirety of the message.

_Hey, Umi-chan. I have a plan to save the school. Shoot me with an arrow._

Umi was _very_ glad the teacher had not noticed this note; Honoka had never really learned how easy it was to take the things she said out of context, especially in matters like these, where the context involved things that most people could not sense in any manner. But that was not what was important. What was important was that Honoka had just given Umi the green light to know exactly what it was she had just been thinking about.

Umi was not quite sure what had inspired this eagerness in her to know what dumb (it _had_ to be dumb; Honoka had come up with it) plan Honoka had come up with. Maybe it was her sentimental feelings for the school welling up. Maybe it was seeing (well, _hearing_ ) Honoka in a bad mood. Maybe Honoka had some powers of suggestion about which Umi did not know. Whatever it was, Umi now had an itch she needed to scratch, and apparently twenty-eight minutes was too long to wait to scratch it.

Umi folded Honoka’s note back up, made sure she had not missed anything the teacher had written on the board (she had not), and whispered the name of her Stand to herself, allowing it to manifest.

“Shot to the Heart.”

Or, at least, that was what Umi was attempting to say. Umi’s Stand, like many Stands before and after hers, had an English name that had simply come to Umi upon first manifesting it, _sans_ context. However, Umi had been four years old when she had first manifested Shot to the Heart, and she had not even known of English as a concept at such an early age, so the name had not carried any meaning to her at the time. In addition to not really knowing _why_ she had chosen to name her Stand what she had, she had also been forced to tangle with the fact she had not been equipped to pronounce its name in the same manner a native English speaker would have, either. This had ended up leading Umi to simply pronounce its name to the best of her ability, following a pseudo-tradition adopted by pretty much every Japanese Stand user. Therefore, what actually came out of Umi’s mouth sounded a tad different from what one may have expected.

“ _Shotto tsuu za Haato_.”

Umi wondered which group of people thought she looked more ridiculous once she manifested her Stand. To the vast majority of the people in the room, Umi looked like she was clenching her left hand in the aisle for no apparent reason. To Honoka and Kotori, she appeared to be holding a two-metre tall _yumi_ bow with ostentatious blue swirl designs on it in the middle of the aisle instead. Luckily, it seemed only a couple of people were bothering to pay attention to her strange mannerisms (mostly the ones who spent all class staring at her like creeps anyway).

Umi felt the bow’s arrow manifest in her right hand. It was more of a dimly-glowing white crystal in the shape of an arrow than an actual arrow, but it got the job done. Umi would need to do the rest of this fast, lest she appear even stranger to the peanut gallery. She concentrated on a question whilst gripping the arrow.

_What is the person who will be hit by this arrow planning to do in response to the announcement Otonokizaka will be closing?_

She had always had to phrase questions in horrible ways to get them to stick. She could only ask certain questions to her Stand in certain ways. Some questions were flawed from the start, such as ones asking to predict the future in some manner or ones that did not leave who would be hit by the arrow vague. If Umi had phrased her question replacing _the person who will be hit by this arrow_ with _Honoka_ , for example, the arrow would shatter upon attempting to shoot the bow. This would leave her with a useless Stand for a few hours (she could probably whack someone with the bow, but that was about it), as she only had one arrow and shattering it like that took it a while to regenerate. Some questions were fine in principle, but would not give Umi any information. After all, if she were to shoot someone who had no idea Otonokizaka was closing down, then the question of what they were planning on doing in response to that was a useless one. The penalty for those questions, however, was simply to not gain any new insights, rather than having to wait five hours to get her arrow back.

As it was, this question was fine in principle: she could tell because the arrow in her hand was glowing a faint blue colour. She then nocked her arrow and drew back the string, as she had done so many times on bows both physical and ethereal.

She noticed how a few more heads were turned to her display now. Great. She could just imagine what they were thinking: probably mostly different permutations of the same two ideas.

There were those who were indifferent to her, whose thoughts probably went something along the lines of derision. _Looks like Sonoda-san’s finally snapped._

Then there were her… admirers, whose thoughts were more likely to twist this display into something deserving great respect. _Oh, Sonoda-sama is even practicing archery form in class! How dedicated! How dreamy!_

Umi resisted the urge to shudder and decided to just get it over with. She pointed her Stand at Honoka, made sure to account for the fact Honoka would flinch once she shot, and let go. The arrow made contact with Honoka’s face immediately (she was only a metre away) and dissolved, and instantly Umi’s mind was assaulted by various words and images, coalescing together to form Honoka’s plan.

It was times like these where Umi almost wished shooting someone with her Stand actually harmed them instead of instantly causing the arrow to dissolve, because Honoka _definitely_ deserved harm after forcing Umi to see this plan. Umi had been right about one thing: the plan was very, _very_ dumb.

* * *

 

There were three main components to a Kousaka Honoka plan. The first component was unwavering optimism: the type of optimism that could only come about from absolutely refusing to consider any ways in which the plan was flawed. Umi had to admit: Honoka’s cheerful outlook on life was cute, and one of the main components of her charisma, but it did not make for sound planning.

The second component to a Kousaka Honoka plan was a lack of any deep specifics beyond an overarching theme. Her plans could often be reduced to a few words (such as _open a bakery_ ), leaving filling in the blanks (such as who would actually _run_ the bakery) for other people (usually Umi).

The third, final, and most important component to a Kousaka Honoka plan was that it had to be absurdly idiotic. At minimum, it needed to rely on contrivances or on people reacting in a manner completely opposite to the way they normally acted. Most of Honoka’s plans simply failed to stay grounded in reality altogether, apparently having “magic” as a step halfway through.

Like all Kousaka Honoka plans to come before this one, Honoka’s plan to save the school held all three components.

“A Stand user club,” Umi repeated for the second time in as many minutes, just as incredulous as the first time she had said it.

“Yeah! C’mon, Umi-chan. How many other schools have Stand user clubs?” Honoka asked this question as though Umi cared about the purported novelty of a public club for an affliction about which most of the Earth’s population knew nothing.

Umi looked around (for the fifth time) to make sure there were no eavesdroppers. Umi, Honoka, and Kotori were sitting on a bench underneath a tree on the school grounds during break, and it would not do to have people overhearing them. She then turned right back to Honoka. It seemed it would fall on her shoulders to explain to Honoka exactly why a Stand user club was a terrible idea. The first question was obvious.

“How is a Stand user club going to save the school?”

Honoka, for her part, actually stopped to think before answering. “It could generate publicity,” she said, though it came out rather unsure. This was probably because she knew what Umi’s retort was going to be and she didn’t have anything prepared for it.

“Nobody even knows Stands exist. This will just make us look crazy.”

“Well…” Honoka appeared to be losing steam. Umi was used to Honoka forcing Umi to go along with her shenanigans; it was odd seeing her so unsure of herself. However, this moment did not last long as Honoka’s face lit up and she started babbling. “We could pretend to just be some super-abilities club or something. Like, pretend we’re just really good at certain things and impress people. The Stand part’ll be a secret. It’ll be a secret Stand user club!” By the end of her speech, Honoka’s plan had doubled in absurdity, as had her speech double in enthusiasm.

Umi would admit (though never aloud) that a club dedicated to seemingly superhuman feats was probably greater publicity than the other claims to fame Otonokizaka had, which included, amongst other lukewarm achievements, a somewhat passable archery team and a choir that bothered to show up to competitions. She could also foresee it leading to more Stand users themselves wishing to enroll in the school. It was not completely farfetched; Umi had heard of entire towns becoming something of Stand user havens (though apparently the nearest one was also home to delinquents who punched plates of spaghetti).

That being said, that was but one problem in Honoka’s plan. In fact, the problem Umi was about to bring up next saw fit to show herself at that moment.

The three girls watched as two new people strolled up to their bench. Umi immediately recognized them as Ayase Eli and Toujou Nozomi, the president and vice-president, respectively, of the student council. They both held positions of (relative) power and possessed their own natural beauty (at least, that was what other students seemed to believe), leading the both of them (mostly Ayase, though) to have their fair share of admirers.

Upon reaching a suitable distance from the bench Ayase gave each of the girls a quick once-over whilst Toujou just sort of stood there smiling. Umi did not know what to make of any of this. Ayase then fiddled with her hair and spoke. “Excuse me, do you have a moment?”

The response was immediate; all three of the girls stood up (though that was more the upperclasswoman effect than any deference to power; Umi knew for a fact Honoka had no clue who these girls were) and responded with a simultaneous “yes.”

Ayase turned to Kotori and the two had a brief conversation about the recent announcement. In the interim, Umi explained who Ayase was to Honoka. Considering Kotori was the daughter of the principal, Umi supposed it would make sense Ayase wanted to know if Kotori knew anything she did not. Honoka looked like she wanted to interject in the conversation, but Umi grabbed her arm to keep her from doing it. Nothing Honoka said could make the situation better and _oh_ could she make it worse.

Once Ayase and her cohort left, the girls sat back down.

Umi decided now was as good a time as any to bring up her next big reservation. “If you want to form a club here, you need to get it approved by the student council president. How are you going to convince Ayase-senpai to let us form a club?”

This time, Kotori spoke up. “Um…”

Both Umi and Honoka turned to look at her. “Kotori?” Umi prodded.

“I mean, we could always just go to my mother instead; she knows about Stands.”

Umi supposed Kotori had a point. After all, Principal Minami held a lot more power than any student could when it came to matters such as these, so it would not be out of the question for her to be able to override the need for Ayase to approve of the club. Furthermore, Kotori’s mother was in the know when it came to Stands (even if she did not possess one herself), so their little plan would sound far less like they had gone off the deep end if they explained it to her.

Umi still had many reservations about Honoka’s plan (she had written down a list whilst they were still in class), but apparently Honoka felt that sorting out two issues was enough as she got up and stretched.

“All right! Let’s go ask her about it then!”

And then she took off running towards the school, immediately followed by a protesting Umi and a flustered Kotori.

* * *

 

 **STAND NAME:** Shot to the Heart ( **ショット** **・** **ツー** **・** **ザ** **・** **ハート** [ _Shotto tsuu za Haato_ ])

 **STAND USER:** Sonoda Umi ( **園田海未** )

 **Power:** E

 **Speed:** B

 **Range:** A

 **Durability:** E

 **Precision:** A

 **Potential:** C

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As an academic (a neurotic one at that), I will be citing things that I researched for this fanfic and did not know beforehand for… praxis I guess. I will not cite things like me leafing through a thesaurus or looking up how to spell words, though.
> 
> Factoids about the Love Live! School Idol Project universe and related media are (assuming I did not make them up for the purposes of this fanfic) sourced from the show itself (as in: Love Live! School Idol Project), from the unofficial Love Live! wiki, or from tidbits I half-remember from the TVTropes page unless otherwise stated. This is also true for Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure; I either took from the show (parts 1 through 6) or the wiki.
> 
> The wikis in question can be found at:  
> http://love-live.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page  
> http://jojo.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
> 
> The TVTropes page (which has links to the subpages) can be found at: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Franchise/LoveLive
> 
> Though I’d rather not admit it, I have supplemented my complete lack of knowledge of Japanese with, aside from a friend of mine who can speak a bit of it, the following online translator and the Wikipedia page for all of the kana:  
> http://tangorin.com/; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kana
> 
> All of the above is a sort of general citation that applies to the whole fanfic.
> 
> As for things from this chapter I wish to cite:
> 
> Yumi bow, which is what Umi uses for archery (probably): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yumi
> 
> Shot to the Heart’s name is inspired by You Give Love a Bad Name by Bon Jovi. Yes; I am aware the lyric is Shot through the heart. I like this name better so that’s what you get.
> 
> Note that citing some site or another is not an endorsement of the site or the content therein.


	2. Kotori's Bizarre Mother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be spoilers for Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Parts 1 through 6 in this fanfic.
> 
> There will also be spoilers for the events of the entire Love Live! School Idol Project anime.
> 
> If events (or their fanfic-universe equivalent) occur in a different order (or do not occur at all) as compared to the anime there is probably an explanation for it. The explanations can range from "a logical conclusion of events that occur in the story" to "Fate willed it" to "it was less effort to write it like this".

Honoka did not possess much of a silver tongue; her charisma instead came from her endless reserve of energy and confidence. Umi described her as pushy (she _had_ used ruder words before but those had always been followed soon after with an apology), but she preferred more neutral labels, such as persistent.

And Umi was one to talk after spending all March barging into her house and forcing her to learn how the unit circle worked. The only day where Umi had not come over to her house that month had been Umi’s birthday, where Honoka had been forced to go over to Umi’s house to be lectured (and have cake) instead. Not even days when she had actually had exams had been exempt, nor had days past exams, when the school year had been over, allowed for respite.

Making up with enthusiasm for what she lacked in subterfuge could only take her so far, however. If the person to whom she was talking _really_ did not want to do something, she could not force them. That was why she had needed to spend almost all of the rest of the break convincing Umi to first let go of her (she had just made it to the school doors before Umi had caught up with her and had tackled her to the ground) and then to listen to her.

Honoka had managed to get through to Umi under the condition that if Principal Minami were to say their idea was worthless, then they were to drop it. All three girls had been aware that, with Honoka, actually counting on her to drop it was a fool’s game; it had been more of a formality than anything. Honoka strongly suspected Umi had just wanted to get her to stop whining.

And with that, the three girls found themselves standing in front of the principal. Kotori looked rather nervous, but the warm look her mother was giving her seemed to be calming her down. Honoka was brimming with confidence: she was certain that the principal would at least hear their idea out. Umi, on the other hand, was deliberately avoiding eye contact with the principal and seemed to despise every second she spent in the room more than the last.

Honoka was unsure why, but Umi seemed to be absolutely convinced that Kotori’s mother held some sort of grudge against her; nothing anyone had ever said to Umi had been able to convince her otherwise. Honoka could not fathom a person holding a grudge for almost a decade, especially considering what Umi had done had not even been that bad. Unfortunately, Umi appeared to be doomed to eternally atone for actions that required no atoning.

Honoka supposed that was just the type of person Umi was. No slight was too small to be worthy of an apology; she also, annoyingly enough, held other people to this standard (mostly Honoka). Umi probably kept tools for ritual disembowelment in her nightstand.

“So, what brings you all here today?” Principal Minami asked. The warm look had turned from Kotori to Honoka, obviously expecting her to be the one to speak up. The position of the group’s mouthpiece was one Honoka had always taken over the years. At first, Umi and Kotori had raised protest, but lately it had become a solid position with tenure and dental benefits.

Said dental benefits consisted of Umi occasionally buying her dental floss whilst yelling at her about the dangers of eating too many sweets. Umi blushed a lot on those outings, and any other outings where she bought either Honoka or Kotori gifts. It was cute, if annoying.

Honoka decided to open with exposition which everyone present already knew. She felt it was a good mood-setter, and it also gave her a few extra seconds to organize her thoughts.

“The school’s closing down, right?”

Principal Minami nodded. “That’s right. The school has not been receiving enough applications in recent years for it to be feasible to keep it open.”

“So if enough people apply next year, the school can stay open, right?”

Principal Minami’s expression shifted. She seemed somewhat cautious (probably from experience dealing with Honoka’s antics). “That is correct, I suppose. Why do you ask? Do you believe you have some way to attract more people to Otonokizaka?”

_She’s good_ , Honoka thought, ignorant of the fact that a combination of Honoka’s incredibly specific topic choice and having known Honoka for multiple years meant it was incredibly obvious to Principal Minami where this conversation was headed. “Well, yes. You see –”

Principal Minami cut her off. “I hope you are aware that a plan you came up with in the span of a few minutes is not likely to save our school.” Yep; she was definitely speaking from experience. “I’m willing to hear it, but I feel your efforts would be better spent living your remaining high school years to the fullest rather than attempting to recruit new students.”

From someone with a harsher expression, cutting her off probably would have stunned Honoka. However, the principal had kept a warm (though rather sad) look on her face whilst speaking, so it merely gave Honoka pause for a few seconds as she let the words sink in. Apparently, Kotori took those few seconds as a sign of resignation, as she took it upon herself to speak in Honoka’s stead.

“Honoka-chan thought that we could make a sort of… Stand user club in order to attract people here.”

The principal’s face contorted into an expression that Honoka found indecipherable. It seemed to be a strange mixture of curiosity and fear. Honoka wondered if she was witnessing some unearthed trauma play out in the principal’s mind. Umi looked like she wanted to say something in response to what Kotori had said, but considering that the subject of Stands was intimately related to Umi’s guilt complex, she remained silent and kept her head down.

Principal Minami appeared to notice this, and adopted her previous warm expression (or at least a facsimile of it). “Sonoda-san, is there something on your mind? Don’t worry; I don’t mind the subject matter.”

Honoka was fairly sure that was a lie, and she was even surer Umi would think it a lie even if it were not. However, it appeared being addressed snapped Umi to attention anyway. Umi suddenly stood up straight and spoke with surprising confidence and minimal voice cracks.

“I would just like to clarify, Director, that we would not be making the nature of Stands public in creating this club. It would be similar to a magic club. We would show off our abilities to entertain people, and they could choose to believe it’s real or that it’s all smoke and mirrors at their discretion.”

Honoka supposed that was an important detail. The general public was completely in the dark about Stands (the Speedwagon Foundation and similar organizations from before its inception probably had something to do with keeping it a secret, considering the effects some Stands possessed), and attempting to get people to come to what would certainly appear to be an _imaginary friends club_ performance seemed farfetched.

Otonokizaka would not benefit from a _chuunibyou_ club.

And that was assuming such a club only resulted in its members becoming social outcasts; for all they knew, a Stand user club could attract the attention of a knife-throwing vampire or a serial killer with a hand fetish. Though only one year younger than Kujo Jotaro (a man Honoka pictured as being a little over three and a half metres tall) had been when he had embarked on his quest to murder his adoptive great-uncle, the trio were not prepared to deal with whatever horrors were lurking out in the world full of terrible people with terrible Stands.

Otonokizaka would not benefit from a fate-worse-than-death club.

Principal Minami looked over everyone once again, perhaps looking for more information. When she did not receive any, she fixed them with a sad smile.

“I am afraid all club requests must be approved by the student council.”

“But how are we gonna get the student council to approve a Stand club?” Honoka asked, having found her voice again.

“Just tell them what you’ll tell everyone else… that it’s a magic club. I’m sure they’ll understand.”

Everyone in the room was aware of the lack of sincerity in that statement.

Kotori spoke up. “You really can’t overrule the student council?”

Principal Minami sighed. “I can overrule the student council, but as I said before, I do not think a plan thrown together less than twenty-four hours after the announcement will save the school. If you can get the student council to agree with you, however, then you have my blessing.”

Principal Minami gave another sad smile. It softened the blow a bit. Honoka was aware the principal was not being obstructive just for the fun of it. The principal simply felt that it would be best if the three girls spent less time playing hero and more time playing student.

Not that Honoka had been that good at playing student in the first place.

The trio left the office in a somewhat morose mood (even Umi, who had made her displeasure at the notion of a Stand user club known since she had heard of it). Honoka was not particularly confident the student council would consider their idea for more than the amount of time it would take to get the **REJECTED** stamp (no such stamp existed, but Honoka had no way of knowing this).

However, Honoka had one saving grace: Principal Minami had not rejected the idea outright.

That meant that, as per her agreement with Umi, the plan to form the club could still move forward.

* * *

 

Honoka arrived home tired from her first day back at school. After announcing her arrival to the house (an announcement of which only her mother was in earshot) and taking off her shoes, she ran upstairs to her sister’s room. As an older sibling, Honoka took the sacred responsibility of being a giant pest for about an hour every day quite seriously. Not even a day as event-filled as today was cause for rest.

“Yukiho!” Honoka shouted as she barged into her sister’s room. She _was_ about to say more, but was stopped by what she found Yukiho doing. Honoka had seen many things upon barging into Yukiho’s room (a more disciplined person would have learned how to knock), but she could not say she had ever seen her sister browsing through a high school flier.

This high school flier was distinctly _not_ for Otonokizaka.

“What’s that?” Honoka asked, still not having quite processed the implication.

Yukiho turned to Honoka. “This? It’s a flier for UTX. I’m applying there next year. Welcome home, by the way.”

“UTX, huh?” It was starting to sink in. UTX was a high school, and if Yukiho was applying there next year, that meant UTX would be Yukiho’s high school. The train of thought made sense, but something was off…

“Yeah; it’s the most popular high school right now.”

Wait a minute… “Yukiho!” Honoka shouted again before nearly tackling her sister. “You’re not applying to Otonokizaka?”

What followed was a relatively short argument, but an argument nonetheless, involving Honoka (unsuccessfully) attempting to convince Yukiho that Otonokizaka should be the school to which she should apply. Honoka even tried to get their mother involved, but it appeared she was fine with the decision. The two main points Honoka remembered from the argument as she left Yukiho’s room to sulk in her own were that Yukiho had claimed that people thought it would be a waste of time to apply to Otonokizaka and that Yukiho did not think Honoka and her friends were capable of single-handedly (well, triple-handedly) saving the school from closure.

Granted, Honoka had only said she had a plan to save the school; she had not divulged the details. Unlike the Sonoda family and the Minami family, the Kousaka family did not know of the existence of Stands. Honoka liked to claim this made her better at keeping secrets than Umi and Kotori, but neither of her friends bought it. Umi’s family had known about Stands since before Umi had been born and the effects of Kotori’s Stand were hard to hide. Honoka’s Stand, in comparison, was rather discreet.

Honoka attempted to find solace in a call to Kotori, but it appeared that was not going to happen. Kotori’s mother was, apparently, perfectly fine with the decision to close the school, even making vacation plans. Honoka wondered if the sadness in the principal’s smile earlier that day had been false. Maybe this newfound happiness was false? Well, if Kotori could not figure it out how was Honoka supposed to do it?

Somewhat surprisingly, Honoka found the next call she made, one to Umi, far more fruitful. There were the usual introductions and scoldings (apparently any time past supper was far too late to be calling Umi for non-emergencies), and then Honoka brought up the topic of the club. It appeared Umi had done some thinking with help from Kotori.

“Do you remember that time we all climbed that tree because you wanted us to?” Umi asked Honoka.

Honoka did not like where this was going. Whenever Umi brought up the tree it was always followed by a long speech about how Honoka was too pushy. How old had they been when they had climbed the tree anyway? Six? Seven? It had been a decade already; Umi needed to learn to let things go. It was therefore with trepidation that she responded. “Yeah…”

“And do you remember how one of the branches broke and we were almost seriously injured?”

Here it came. “Yeah…”

“Well, I talked about that incident with Kotori today, and she reminded me that I actually had a lot of fun climbing that tree. We got a great view of the whole city from up there.”

That was not the way Honoka had anticipated the conversation would go. “Really?”

“Yes. The talk with Kotori helped me realize that even though you always try to push us into doing things, we always end up enjoying them.”

 “So…” Honoka may have been dense, but she knew Umi well enough to know Umi did not bring things up out of the blue (unless it was to scold someone). She had a faint idea of what Umi’s point would be, but she did not want to make assumptions.

“I have decided I will help you with the Stand club idea.”

“Oh, Umi, you’re the best!”

The rest of the conversation was mostly small talk, and Umi had to go soon. That left Honoka to her own devices, whittling away the rest of the evening fiddling with her phone and laptop and occasionally glancing at the work that they had already been assigned.

Honoka was of the opinion it should be illegal to assign homework on any day of the first week of any new term, much less the first day of a new school year.

Eventually came bedtime. Ideally, Honoka would pass out an hour or two before the rest of her family went to bed, but Honoka was honour-bound to only start getting ready for bed a few minutes after she heard the rest of her family settle in for the night.

She began her nightly ritual. She got up from the floor of her bedroom and summoned her Stand. Much like Umi’s Stand, her Stand’s name was in English, and Honoka’s English, even as a teenager, was about good enough to ask someone for the location of the nearest washroom. Thus, though in theory the name of her Stand was Sweet Dreams, what Honoka said to manifest it sounded quite different.

“ _Suiito Doriimuzu_.”

Honoka was the only one of her trio of friends to possess a humanoid Stand. It was rather simple in design, being about her height, somewhat feminine in body shape, with dark blue skin clad in an orange nightgown and long dark red hair. The nightgown covered the entire body past the neck (not that there was anything interesting to see underneath it; Honoka had checked one time in early pubescent curiosity). The most striking part of Sweet Dreams (to Honoka, who admittedly had eccentric interests) was that, though it possessed a rather ordinary face, its eyes were always closed.

Sweet Dreams had two main purposes.

As Honoka strolled quietly out into the hallway, she stopped at her sister’s room. She put her head to the door to check for signs of her sister still being awake (Honoka had had to learn this lesson the embarrassing way). She heard only slow, deep breathing. Honoka slowly slid the door open just enough to see her sister sleeping in her bed. She sent Sweet Dreams over and let its hand touch her sister’s forehead.

Yukiho seemed to snuggle herself deeper into her blankets. Honoka felt herself smile; this never got old. She shut the door.

Honoka tiptoed to her parents’ room, and did the same to each of them in turn. Sweet Dream’s first purpose was to ensure that anyone who was touched by it shortly after falling asleep would awaken incredibly well-rested. Honoka had therefore set up this nightly ritual to ensure her family received the best slumber they could. She felt it was the least she could do.

Satisfied with her work, Honoka crept back to her room (making a pit stop in the bathroom to brush her teeth). Unfortunately, Honoka could not benefit from Sweet Dreams’s first ability; she needed to be awake to keep it manifested. However, she could certainly benefit from its second ability: the ability to make anyone fall asleep with prolonged contact.

And so, Honoka let her Stand put its hand on her forehead as she lay in bed, feeling waves upon waves of drowsiness crash into her. Tomorrow would likely be a day just as eventful as this day, so she needed all the sleep she could get.

At least tomorrow she would have Umi on her side.

* * *

 

**STAND NAME:** Sweet Dreams ( **スイート・ドリームズ** [ _Suiito Doriimuzu_ ])

**STAND USER:** Kousaka Honoka ( **高坂穂乃果** )

**Power:** D

**Speed:** C

**Range:** C

**Durability:** C

**Precision:** B

**Potential:** B

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sweet Dreams’s name is inspired by Sweet Dreams by Eurhythmics.


	3. Nozomi's Bizarre Prediction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite being written in present-tense whilst the story is written in past-tense, the small blurbs at the end of the chapters describe the world as it was at the time of the end of the chapter, unless otherwise specified.

Ayase Eli had been hoping her third and final year of high school would be a good one. Her second year had been fine; she had managed to become student council president and had even been fortunate enough to get her best friend as vice-president. This year she had been planning to scout a suitable replacement for their positions and ensure her sister, currently in her last year of middle school, earned adequate grades to attend Otonokizaka.

She could still do the former, she supposed, but it appeared the latter had been cut off from her.

Eli had not been oblivious to Otonokizaka’s dwindling application rate coming into the new term; aside from having access to the relevant documents (the student council was privy to all student demographic data for various fundraising reasons), it had been common knowledge coming into the year that the amount of prospective first-years that had applied to Otonokizaka could only fill a single classroom.

Otonokizaka had been forced into a one-hundred-percent acceptance rate for the year just to get enough students.

Eli had known that Otonokizaka had been having recruiting problems, but she had at least hoped the school could remain open for a few more years. If nothing else, it should have been open long enough for her sister to be able to get into it. Unfortunately, the noose had tightened too quickly. Eli would have preferred they implemented this last year if it had to be implemented so soon; at least then the initial shock would have been the past student council president’s mess to clean up.

Alas, it was the second day of the school year and already Eli had received fifty-seven letters.

There was, of course, the usual fare of love letters. Most letters were relatively tame, simply remarking upon her beauty or her grace or some other alleged feature that had apparently drawn the author’s attention. The current top charm point appeared to be her hair and its alleged silkiness (Eli did not let people touch her hair, so she was not sure how any of them could claim to know its texture). Frankly, she found the tame letters somewhat cute.

Some love letters were distinctly creepier, describing fantasies in which Eli wanted no part or describing the author’s infatuation with strange similes that frequently involved the mutilation of body parts. These letters tended to come stained with tears (at least Eli _hoped_ they were tears) and frequently included drawings. Eli usually got a few sentences into these letters and then immediately threw them in the garbage.

Eli had compared handwriting and crunched numbers and had come to the conclusion that Otonokizaka possessed no less than three times as many students who were willing to admit an attraction to another girl compared to the national average. Maybe all-girls schools just attracted lesbians. Granted, it could also just be a coincidence. After all, Eli had not come to this school with the intention of getting a hot date, even though she knew enough about herself to know the issue of gender was not what was stopping her from accepting these love letters.

Eli had, however, only received thirty-six love letters so far. The other twenty-one letters had been letters regarding the closure of the school and what it meant, what could be done, what the student council knew, _et cetera_. Frankly, Eli would rather have received more love letters; she did not need to respond to love letters. Eli did feel a need, however, to respond to _these_ letters; they were asking concerned questions of the student council (and occasionally accusing her of playing a part in the closure, but she ignored those).

Eli leaned back in her chair. The student council room’s lights were off, meaning the only light in the room came from the window. It gave the room a brooding atmosphere and Eli hated it, but Nozomi had insisted on it for dramatic purposes. Not that Nozomi was actually doing anything to help with actual student council work right now; she had been fiddling with her tarot deck all morning (even in class). Eli wondered what exactly Nozomi was trying to figure out that it somehow required this many readings.

Maybe investing in a tarot deck that had more than just the Major Arcana would be useful.

Whether Nozomi was using the deck for divination or as a coping mechanism, Eli hoped she figured something out soon because the shuffling noises were driving her up the wall.

Eli could tell her to get to work…

Sometimes, Eli felt like there was something keeping Nozomi and her from seeing eye-to-eye. Even when Eli humoured Nozomi and asked for a tarot reading, and even when she followed said reading, she could tell Nozomi was expecting something that Eli was still not giving. Was she not enthusiastic enough about Nozomi’s hobbies? Did Nozomi think that Eli was treating this as little more than pretend? Eli did not know.

Eli had promised herself coming into the new school year that she would figure out what she needed to do to get closer to Nozomi. Not necessarily in a romantic way (though if Nozomi asked for a date she would probably accept), but she could tell that whenever certain subjects, such as Nozomi’s cards, were brought up, Nozomi put up a barrier. And so, Eli was determined to allow Nozomi to continue with whatever it was she was doing for now.

She hoped that if she started treating Nozomi’s rituals with the same solemn respect as Nozomi did, then maybe Nozomi would stop acting weird every time Eli mentioned them or involved herself in them. To start off, Eli was planning on simply letting Nozomi do as she pleased without input or attempting to divert her attention to more pressing matters.

Eli supposed it was the beginning of the year, so there was not much to do in terms of actual student council work. Eli decided to mull over the events of the past couple days until now in order to clear her thoughts. Perhaps it would give her a plan going forward.

Eli had arrived the first day of school, alongside Nozomi, in high spirits. They had gone to the auditorium to hear the traditional (and frankly boring) entrance speech, only to be blindsided, alongside the rest of the students, by the announcement the school would be closing. Said announcement had apparently come with a giant poster tacked on a corkboard in one of the hallways reiterating the point.

Eli had attended the morning classes (even if she had been a tad out of it) and had sought out the principal’s daughter, Minami Kotori, in order to see if she could dig up any information on the announcement. Minami had not been much help, apparently just as in the dark as Eli, and Minami’s two friends had been whispering to one another about Eli for the entirety of the conversation, so Eli had given up on that trail.

Today, Eli had instead sought out the principal herself. She had asked the principal about any potential ways to save the school from closure and had received an obviously-practiced speech about how half-baked plans would not save the school (even though Eli had not claimed to have a plan of any sort, much less one that was half-baked). Eli had been told that the best thing she and Nozomi could do for the school would be to run the student council and to forget about the fact the school would be closing soon. The idea was to focus on the students already enrolled rather than worrying about any potential new ones.

That was a tall order if Eli had ever heard one.

To her left, Eli heard Nozomi stop whatever she was doing. Nozomi could have switched out her tarot deck for an actual deck and have started playing Klondike solitaire and Eli would not have noticed, so Eli could not claim to know the purpose of Nozomi’s machinations. Eli turned to Nozomi to find blue eyes staring back at her.

“Something’s about to happen, Elichi.”

Eli would have found it much easier to take Nozomi seriously if she did not speak like a fortune cookie. That statement was incredibly vague to the point of being useless and could cover anything from a bird flying into the window to a vacuum metastability event. Eli tried her best to put on a contemplative face, however, and nodded.

If something _was_ about to happen, Eli could at least prepare for it; she had nothing better to do right now, anyway.

* * *

 

As it turned out, something was about to happen, though it took until almost the end of break for it to occur. Eli was filling out minor budget forms that did not need to be filled out for another week or so, but it never hurt to be on top of things. Nozomi had started actually working, and was in the middle of organizing incoming files in order of importance.

There was a knock at the door.

Eli and Nozomi shared a glance before Eli responded. “Come in.”

The door opened to reveal a sight Eli could not say she had expected.

In front of Eli stood three girls, all posing.

The formation consisted of one in front and two behind on either side. The rightmost (from Eli’s point of view) girl was Minami Kotori. She was currently standing on her left leg, with her arms out and slightly raised as though she had been frozen in the middle of an exaggerated walk. The leftmost girl was one Eli also recognized. She was Sonoda Umi, athlete and academic, who claimed the dubious honour of receiving almost as much fan mail as Eli did. Sonoda was standing on her right leg, with her left arm behind her back and her right arm raised to her head as though to grab a hat (which she was not wearing).

The centremost girl was one Eli had seen yesterday, talking with the other two, but whose name escaped her. She was standing on her right leg with her left hand raised, index finger out, pointing to the sky. In her right hand she held some sort of form; it resembled a club application form.

Overall, the display looked entirely ridiculous to Eli. Nozomi, on the other hand, seemed fascinated by the trio’s absurd poses; her eyes were wide and her mouth was slightly open. Eli supposed Nozomi had always had a flair for the dramatic.

The problem was that entering the student council room should not have been a dramatic activity.

It took only a few seconds for Minami and Sonoda to realize how out of place their posing was. They immediately adopted more casual postures as their faces turned beet-red and they both stared at the ground. Eli could not figure out what had possessed them to contort themselves like that in the first place.

The mystery girl, on the other hand, took a few seconds longer to plant her left foot on the ground and lower her arm. She did not seem embarrassed in the slightest. Eli did not know whether to be impressed or not.

Eli was at a loss for words, staring at the three girls in the doorway. The one in front eventually decided to step into the dark room with her two friends trailing behind. Eli could not quite make out what was on the form in the apparent leader’s hand. This was why Eli had wanted the lights on; she did not particularly care for dramatic tension.

The trio stopped right in front of Eli’s desk. At this point, Nozomi was behind and to the left of them from Eli’s point of view. The leader shoved the paper she was holding in Eli’s face with about all the grace of a toddler handling a paintbrush. Had she not been somewhat-gracefully posing on one leg half a minute ago?

Eli took the paper and started reading over it. In theory, everything Eli needed would have been written on the piece of paper. In practice, the writing was barely at a middle school level, with kanji squeezed together for no real apparent reason and frequent misspellings. Reading it gave her a headache, and the silence in the room was turning from formal to uneasy. She decided speaking would probably be better suited to deciphering exactly what it was these three wanted.

Eli searched for the part of the form where the names went. She found _Minami Kotori_ (whose given name was written in hiragana, she noted) and _Sonoda Umi_ , both written in surprisingly elegant script. Eli figured the names were probably written by their owners rather than whoever wrote the rest of the document. The difference in writing brought to mind the difference between a Renaissance painting and something a five-year-old would scribble on a fridge if they got paint on their fingers. Eli’s hypothesis was confirmed when she saw the only other name on the form was written exactly as haphazardly as the rest of the text on the form.

Eli could just barely make out the name.

“Kousaka Honoka?” Eli asked of the burnt-orange-haired girl in front of her. Reading Japanese names had never been a strong suit of hers (reading poorly-written Japanese names even less so), and it had only been a couple of years since she had started needing that skill again.

“Yes?” Kousaka responded.

It appeared Eli had not fumbled the start of the conversation. Confident the difficult part was over, she continued her questioning. “What is this?”

“It’s an application to form a magic club,” Kousaka replied with a smile. Eli had to admit that it was somewhat admirable how people could walk into the student council room and confidently request even the most esoteric of groups be formed with their heads held high.

What was not admirable was how none of them ever bothered to perform even a base amount of research into the requirements to have a club application accepted.

Eli could not glean much from the application, but she could parse that the only proposed members of the club would be the three girls present. Unfortunately for Kousaka and her friends (all of whom were second years, and should already have known this), in order to found a club, the club needed at least five initial members.

“Kousaka-san, I am afraid I must decline your request”, Eli said, grateful she had an easy excuse out of reading more of the form (she had screwed up _all five_ kanji in her name).

“What? Why?” Kousaka’s response was immediate.

“In order to form a club, the club must have five members, no matter what the subject of the club is.” Eli made sure to insert that last part into her statement, as not doing so had led to long, drawn-out arguments in the past about the possibility of exceptions to the five-member-rule for niche clubs.

This time it was Sonoda’s turn to respond immediately. “There are many clubs on campus with fewer than five members, Ayase-senpai.”

What Sonoda said was true; in fact, it would not surprise Eli if it turned out the majority of Otonokizaka’s clubs no longer held five members. After all, the school’s population had been steadily shrinking for years. However, as she would explain, “I am sure they had five members when they formed; after being formed, as long as a club has at least one member every year, it can stay a club.”

Nozomi saw fit to interject. “You just need two more members.” She said this with a warm, disarming smile, but Eli saw something brewing in Nozomi’s eyes.

 “Two more members…” Kousaka muttered to herself, as she raised one of her hands to her chin. Behind her, Minami shot a nervous look at Sonoda, who herself was wearing an expression of horror. Eli could not understand even half of this group’s mannerisms.

Kousaka suddenly snatched the application form off the desk. “All right! If we need five members to form a club then we’ll just come back with five members!” With that, Kousaka turned around and started walking away, her cohorts apparently seeing fit to follow. Sonoda looked like she wanted to say something about this, but she was keeping her mouth shut.

Come to think of it, Eli was curious.

“Why are you three forming a magic club?”

Kousaka spun on her heel (this caused both Sonoda and Minami to cringe at the obvious lack of care for her footwear) to face Eli. “We’re planning on using this magic club to help recruit new students.”

Eli envied her confidence. Unfortunately for Kousaka, the principal’s words from this morning rang fresh in Eli’s ears. Eli supposed the principal would be disappointed if Eli did not at least pass on her advice. “A plan thrown together in a short amount of time won’t recruit new people to the school. Furthermore, clubs are not for recruiting new members; they are for existing members to express themselves.”

Kousaka seemed unimpressed. More than likely Kousaka had also gone to the principal and had received the same speech.

“I know”, Kousaka said as she turned around and exited the room, “but this plan’ll work. You’ll see!” And with that, she shut the door.

The room was in silence, still save for the dust motes floating in the sunbeam.

“The confidence of youth”, Nozomi said with mirth as she took her tarot deck out again.

“You’re only a year older than them, Nozomi.”

There was that guarded look again. Nozomi was smiling, but there was something _off_ about it. Eli could not place it now, but she was determined to find out what was up with Nozomi before the school year was over.

As for this magic club idea, even if the trio came back as a quintet tomorrow, Eli did not see herself approving the club. If Principal Minami had already given both groups of girls a talking-to about playing saviour, there was probably a reason for it. Besides, Eli did not think it was possible for a magic club to ever become popular enough to save the school singlehandedly within less than a year.

* * *

 

**INTERESTING LOCATION:** Otonokizaka High School ( **国立音ノ木坂学院** )

**SPECIALTY:** Education

**Effectiveness:** B

**Cleanliness:** A

**Popularity:** E

Claims to fame include its abysmally low application rate as well as having seven Stand users in attendance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Information on tarot cards: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot
> 
> Information on Major Arcana in particular: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_Arcana  
> If you want information on a particular card it’s in a hyperlink in the second link (like Hell am I citing each card every time I need one).
> 
> Poses stolen from these figures (note that this is not in any way, shape, or form an advertisement or endorsement for these or any other figures or any merchandise in general; I just needed a reference for poses):
> 
> Honoka https://www.amazon.com/Sega-Love-Live-Kousaka-Premium/dp/B00XEHR5MW  
> Umi https://www.amazon.com/Sega-Love-Live-Sonoda-Premium/dp/B00XEHSHD8  
> Kotori https://www.amazon.com/Sega-Love-Live-Kotori-Premium/dp/B00RTEXM7I


	4. Umi's Bizarre Possession

It was the end of the second day of Honoka’s second year of high school. Ideally, she would have been enjoying some bread at the moment as a form of celebration for getting this far in the year. Unfortunately, she was too preoccupied for that.

Instead, she was pacing through the halls of the school, searching both for inspiration and for unused, unlocked classrooms. So far, she had found neither.

In order to have their club approved by the student council they needed, at minimum, two more students willing to sign on to the idea. In theory, this was not a difficult goal to achieve. Honoka did not imagine it would be impossible to find two people in the entire school population (small though it may have been) who would be willing to join a purported magic club.

However, Honoka was hoping this club would result in more students joining the school. In order for that pipe dream to come to fruition, it would be necessary for this club to put on performances to get many people very interested in a short amount of time. In order for a magic club to aspire to such a level, Honoka imagined it would require particularly interesting magic: magic that would be both unique and which could not easily be explained away as parlour tricks.

It would require the best magic there was, and the best magic of which Honoka could think would have to be that of a Stand. Umi would probably take issue with Honoka referring to Stands as a form of magic, but if the shoe fit…

Besides, the most common explanation of what a Stand _was_ usually boiled down to something that involved the words _spiritual power_ somewhere, and Honoka did not see any real difference between the two concepts.

Another problem with simply picking two random drama geeks as co-magicians was that it would be nearly impossible for the three Stand users to explain away their magic to them in a convincing manner. Any skeptics in the crowd of a show would be free to come up with their own plausible explanations as to how the magic was occurring, as there were numerous tricks magicians used in actual shows to achieve their desired effects. However, Honoka did not see two sharp-witted students who knew the inner working of the show being as easily swayed.

Try as she might, Honoka could not see a way their club would work without all of the members being Stand users. This meant she needed to find at least two Stand users in the student populace.

How the hell was she going to do that?

She knew, for a fact, that not a single second-year student (other than a member of her trio) was a Stand user. That just left first-years and third-years as potential candidates. Even if there were any undiscovered Stand users in either of these grades (Honoka highly doubted this possibility), Honoka would still need to convince these people to join her club.

Honoka was not liking the odds of the club getting off the ground.

In the meantime, Honoka was also hoping she could find some classroom or another for the purpose of using it for informal club activities. As long as the student council was refusing them the right to form a club officially, they were unlikely to be able to ask them for rooms. Therefore, Honoka was on the hunt for rooms they could commandeer without permission once school hours ended. Umi would probably veto the idea even if she found a room because of _rules_ , but at least she was being proactive.

As Honoka shuffled about checking the locks on the unoccupied classrooms, she heard muffled music coming from somewhere. Intrigued, and welcoming a distraction from her fruitless search, she stopped what she was doing temporarily and decided to investigate. As she neared the source, she realized the sound was coming from the music room (a tad obvious in hindsight).

It sounded like a student playing the piano (quite well) and singing (quite well) to go with it. The song she was singing could stand to vary its lyrics a tad more, but overall Honoka found the experience quite enjoyable. Before she knew it, she was staring into the music room through the door window, watching the student play.

The student had yet to notice her.

She had red hair and was wearing a first-year ribbon. This did not help Honoka identify the student’s name, as Honoka did not know any first-years, but Honoka was certain that if she ever saw this student again, she would recognize her. Her eyes were closed and she seemed consumed with her music. It was rather hypnotizing.

Eventually, the performance came to a close. Honoka started clapping.

_That_ got the redhead to notice her. Her eyes immediately shot to the door in surprise as Honoka opened it and ran in.

“That was amazing!” Honoka exclaimed a little too loudly. “I was so moved!”

The first-year appeared to still be in shock (probably from Honoka’s sudden appearance rather than the complement; there was no way someone that good did not receive complements on a regular basis). She did manage to compose herself, however, and started mumbling. “I’m not _that_ good…”

Honoka considered this nonsense. She had tried to play the piano once, so she knew just how hard it was to make anything come out of it to which one would want to listen. She had also tried singing a few times and, though she was certainly a better singer than a piano player, her vocals could stand to be improved. This girl could do both.

For some reason, the train of thought of her own singing gave Honoka a peculiar sense of _déjà vu_. Honoka disregarded the thought; she had no plans to become a singer anytime soon.

_This_ student before her, however, was clearly a gifted musician. Whether she was merely being humble or truly considered herself only a bit above average, Honoka felt it would be best to boost her spirits.

“You’re such a good singer! And you play the piano so well. And you’re really cute, too!”

That last sentence had slipped out and, though it was true, Honoka was quite glad neither Umi nor Kotori had heard her say it. She was still not certain she understood fully how Umi and Kotori saw her (or how the two saw one another), and it would be best to avoid complicating matters with misunderstandings. If Honoka’s hunches were correct (dense as she may have been, it was hard to ignore years of signals), flirting with this girl was the last thing she wanted to do.

Speaking of this girl, her face had turned completely red at Honoka’s last comment. She made a move to stand up, presumably to leave the room as fast as possible. Well, this was a great start.

Unfortunately for the first-year, Honoka was not done talking to her. If nothing else, Honoka needed to apologize for what had probably come across as her trying to hit on the girl. Honoka rushed over to the bench on which the redhead was sitting. This caused the girl to whip her head towards Honoka, leaving them staring into one another’s eyes.

Thank _God_ her friends were not here to watch this; Honoka did not know much about romance, but she had seen enough boring romance movies to deduce how this would appear to them.

Honoka was about to say something, but as she stared into the girl’s eyes (platonically) she saw something familiar. She had seen it whilst staring into the eyes of Umi and Kotori (less platonically) sometimes; she saw drive, potential, and determination. It was easier for Stand users to notice these things as compared to those who did not possess Stands.

This girl had an abnormally strong will. Could she be a Stand user?

Well, there was an easy way to tell.

Honoka manifested Sweet Dreams right next to herself, such that it would appear right in the corner of this girl’s vision. If this girl was a Stand user, her eyes would automatically jump right to the thing that had suddenly appeared in the corner of her eye. It was natural instinct, after all.

And Umi thought Honoka never retained any information she was taught.

The girl kept her eyes focused directly on Honoka. If she could see Sweet Dreams, she was hiding that fact exceptionally well. Honoka knew a few other tricks to see if someone could see her Stand, but as it was she was probably creeping this girl out enough; Honoka had been staring at her for a few seconds now. Honoka decided it was probably best to clear the air.

“How would you like to be a magician?”

It would probably have been better to open with the apology rather than the proselytizing. Honoka probably sounded like she was attempting to bind the first-year’s soul in a magical girl contract. The apology would have at least put her on slightly less shaky terms with this girl; now she had encroached on her personal space and freaked her out seemingly just to ask an inane question. This was definitely restraining order material.

How much did Umi know about law, again?

The girl simply got off of the bench and then stared at her with an annoyed expression. “What are you talking about?” And then, rather than wait for Honoka to explain, she left the room.

Honoka probably should have felt discouraged by that whole interaction. She did feel guilty for barging in on this girl (she still did not even know her name, come to think of it) and making her feel uncomfortable; she also still had an apology to deliver. That having been said, Honoka was fairly certain she had just met another person who, even if she did not possess a Stand, certainly had the potential to possess a Stand.

And if someone had the potential to be a Stand user, then they had the potential to be a club member. For that to happen, Honoka had a plan. Though, she would have to run her plan through Umi.

There was no way _that_ conversation would be fun.

* * *

 

Entering her second year, Honoka had assumed there would be a period between the start of the year and when clubs started recruiting the year’s new members where no club activities would take place. Evidently, she had been wrong, as Umi still had archery practice. Apparently, clubs just kept running with their old members (or, at least, the ones who had not yet graduated) until any potential new ones came in.

It was due to said archery practice that she was standing by the school gates, conversing with Kotori. Honoka’s perusing of the school had taken a fair amount of time, so Umi was due to arrive any moment now. Once Umi arrived, there would be no turning back.

It was about two minutes into their conversation, and it appeared that had been more than enough time for Kotori to pick up on Honoka’s nervous energy. “Is something wrong, Honoka-chan?” Kotori asked, concern plain on her face.

Honoka did not know how to answer that question. Arguably, things were the opposite of wrong. After all, Honoka had found a potential new recruit (although she appeared to need more convincing). One new recruit was halfway to two new recruits.

And Umi said she was bad at math.

However, actually recruiting her would be a tricky business even if she agreed to be a part of their club. There was also the fact that any attempts to recruit this mystery redhead would necessitate putting her idea through to Umi, who was, at best, unlikely to accept the proposal.

Talking with Umi would suck, and it would be long and drawn-out. It was also a private matter and broadcasting it to the world seemed like a bad idea. Both of those points meant that breaking the news on the walk home from school was not feasible. It would probably be best to hold their conversation at one of the girls’ houses.

Honoka wanted home-field advantage. She also wanted Kotori there. Kotori was not always a voice of reason, but she was invaluable as the only person on the planet who possessed the ability to get Umi to be less harsh on Honoka (name a Stand that could do _that_ ). This matter also personally concerned her, if tangentially, as she was a club member.

And besides, the trio did everything together. Leaving Kotori out of this would seem wrong.

Turning to Kotori, Honoka decided to answer her question by deflecting. “I’m fine, Kotori-chan. Say, do you wanna come over to my house tonight?”

Kotori’s response to that question was to blush. Oops. Honoka always had to watch what she said (a Herculean feat for someone like Honoka) around Kotori; the girl seemed to watch twenty romantic movies a month and could see romantic subtext where none existed. This tended to lead to awkward situations which Honoka needed to diffuse lest Kotori get the wrong idea.

Honoka needed to be certain she knew exactly what she was doing before she tried anything funny.

“If Umi-chan wants to come too, of course.” Honoka added this to make certain Kotori was aware this was meant as a platonic outing to her house. Well, there were other ways one could take it (in fact, given the circumstances, one could not blame Kotori for taking it like that), but Honoka had done this many times before, and so knew roughly how Kotori would react.

As predicted, Kotori smiled, cheeks still flushed but otherwise calm again. “Sure! It’s been a while since we’ve all been over to your house. What’s the occasion?”

“Well, I wanted to talk about some things related to the club…”

Kotori’s face lit up. “Oh! Did you find new members, Honoka-chan?”

That was a loaded question. “Well…”

Honoka was saved from having to find a way to answer indirectly without lying (Umi considered lying to Kotori a capital crime) by the appearance of Umi in the distance. She looked fit as ever despite having spent the past two hours shooting arrows. Honoka envied her sometimes; she had tried pulling back the string on a _yumi_ once and had received a sore elbow (and a lecture on how one should never pull back the string of a bow with no arrow in it without knowing exactly what one was doing) for her troubles. Then again, Honoka was rarely in situations where an ocean’s worth of athletic prowess was required, so remaining a couch potato did not seem like an especially terrible fate.

“Umi!” Honoka shouted, mainly to distract Kotori from the fact her response was not going anywhere. Umi, having apparently already seen the duo, shook her head in what Honoka recognized as a combination of exasperation and amusement (Umi was not the only one who could deduce her friends’ emotions with eerie accuracy).

Umi reached the duo to reform the trio, and accepted Honoka’s invitation over to her house with surprisingly little complaining. Maybe she was craving _manjuu_. The Kousaka family’s _manjuu_ recipe, sold at the Kousaka family’s sweets shop, Homura, was allegedly passed down through many generations (Honoka was pretty sure her paternal grandmother had simply found a recipe in an obscure cookbook), and claimed the coveted title of being Umi’s favourite food. However, Umi, who had an infinite series of sticks up her ass, rarely allowed herself to partake in the treat, usually citing weight concerns. This meant that when Umi actually _wanted_ the stuff, she tended to become (slightly) more copacetic than usual.

The walk home was full of small talk, mostly between Kotori and Umi as Honoka worked out exactly how she wanted the rest of the afternoon to go. She knew there was no way her friends did not notice how she was not occupying two thirds of the conversation like usual, but they did not mention it.

Once they arrived at Honoka’s house, Honoka announced their arrival and led her friends upstairs. She pointedly ignored Yukiho sticking her head out of her room and giving Honoka a suggestive smirk as they entered Honoka’s room. Yukiho was too observant for her own good.

As her guests got settled in her room, Honoka quickly left it and ran downstairs to get a box of _manjuu_. She was planning on using it as a form of peace offering. She ran back up to the room (earning her a complaint from her mother) and placed it, open, on her table.

“I brought some _manjuu_!”

Umi stared at the box, suspicion plain on her face. Apparently, she could smell an attempt to butter her up from a kilometre away. Umi started slowly reaching for one of the _manjuu_. Her eyes continually flicked between the box and Honoka’s face, clearly anticipating some sort of trap.

Honoka was not quite certain why Umi was so concerned about the potential dangers of the _manjuu_ , of all things, when she possessed the Stand equivalent of chloroform on demand. If she had wanted Umi unconscious, Umi would have been unconscious. Maybe Umi was used to the potential dangers of the Stand and thus only reacted this way to new threats? Honoka wondered if she could use this to her advantage at some point.

After a good fifteen seconds, Umi’s hand made contact with the _manjuu_. It took her another ten seconds to bring it up to her face, a good twenty to inspect it, and then three to eat it.

Honoka and Kotori had watched this display in complete silence.

Apparently convinced the _manjuu_ were not poisoned, Umi immediately reached for a second one. Honoka was glad she lived in a bakery and could get _manjuu_ whenever she wanted (though she was currently going through a phase of being sick of it) because at this rate the box would be empty in a few minutes without Honoka or Kotori having eaten a bite.

“So, Honoka-chan,” Kotori started, causing Honoka to turn to stare at her, “you were saying something earlier about the Stand user club?”

Umi almost choked on her fifth (yes, fifth) _manjuu_. Honoka swiveled her head back to Umi (and sprained something in the process). Interestingly, the _manjuu_ box was now closed. Of course; Umi always was a pinnacle of self-control (even if the control was delayed). Five _manjuu_ , despite having lasted as many seconds, were plenty for Umi for the next decade or so.

Honoka let out a nervous laugh. “Right. So, I was thinking, about how we need two more members to form a club, right?”

Umi and Kotori nodded, with Umi sporting her patented _I-hope-this-isn’t-going-where-I-think-it’s-going_ look.

“Well, I was wandering around the halls after school, and I met a really interesting first-year playing piano…”

“Honoka…” Umi’s tone was dangerous, but Honoka was already this deep. She had called them here to ask a question, and a question she would ask.

“Umi-chan, does your family still have that Arrow?”

* * *

 

**INTERESTING LOCATION:** Homura ( **穂むら** )

**SPECIALTY:** Food Preparation and Sale

**Effectiveness:** B

**Cleanliness:** B

**Popularity:** C

Claims to fame include their ever-popular traditional Japanese sweets featuring bean paste and a particularly well-acclaimed _manjuu_ recipe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I got the kana that make up the last two mora of Homura’s name from a picture on this site: https://cosplay-media.com/homura-takemura-love-live/
> 
> As for the kanji for the first mora, it’s kinda obvious in retrospect what with being the same ho kanji as in both of the Kousaka sisters’ names, but I’m not good at this and as far as I am concerned that kanji looks almost nothing like the printed version beyond a few radicals (but apparently that’s just the calligraphy style and I mean there are plenty of Latin letters that look absolutely nothing like their printed versions in cursive so I guess it’s somewhat unfair to complain about that), so I got that friend of mine to look at how it’s written in this (photoshopped) image and they told me what it was:  
> https://twitter.com/lovelivemuse/status/498337966662504449


	5. Honoka's Bizarre Compromise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any pluperfect-tense writing is intentional.

Umi had been born a Stand user, though she had not manifested her Stand until a few months past her fourth birthday. Most likely, she had inherited this ability from her parents, both of whom were Stand users themselves.

Kotori and Honoka, on the other hand, had not been born Stand users. According to Umi, when the two had first met her that fateful day almost ten years ago, Umi had brought forth her Stand multiple times in plain view. Neither Honoka nor Kotori had ever shown any signs of being able to see it.

It was a common fate for a natural Stand user to grow up friendless, feeling unable to relate to their peers. That had almost been Umi’s fate; before Honoka and Kotori had come along she had made a grand total of zero friends her age. Even after the trio had formed, Umi had, apparently, always felt a distance between herself and the other two.

However, Umi had been a resourceful child. Her immature Stand had resembled a recurve bow more than a _yumi_ (though it had always had the gaudy blue swirls) and had fired its arrow with less speed, less precision, and a smaller effective range than its mature version. Despite this, Umi had found many an opportunity to plunder her friends for secrets; she had been able to gather information on her friends even they had not known.

For example, Umi had been able to determine that both Honoka and Kotori could withstand being given a Stand, and that said Stands would not be of the deleterious variety. From there, it had been a simple matter of convincing herself that she was acting in the best interests of everyone involved (after all, she could not fathom the idea of someone turning down a Stand), and calling her friends over to the Sonoda family dojo.

And that, Kotori had later learned, had been the context to how she had found herself in a dusty room the day after Honoka’s eighth birthday. Kotori had been holding Honoka’s hand whilst Umi had been rummaging through a box in the dark. Honoka, for her part, had been spending the better part of fifteen minutes lording her new age over the pair of seven-year-olds in the room.

Kotori had been about as assertive during her childhood as a dog just out of puppyhood (becoming a teenager had not changed this much), but even she had had her limits. Umi had been digging through her seventh mystery box and Honoka had not appeared as though she had been about to shut up any time soon. Kotori had just been about to raise a complaint about this when Umi had found the object for which she had been looking.

“Got it!” Umi had exclaimed, spinning around to show her prize to her friends.

Kotori and Honoka had stared at the object in Umi’s hands. It had been an arrow, and an ornate one at that. Though the shaft had been made of ordinary wood and the fletching of ordinary (real) feathers, the head had been made of a material that had resembled highly-polished bronze. Said head had also been engraved with various ancient Egyptian symbols, the most prominent having been an ankh and an Eye of Horus.

In Umi’s hands had been a Stand-creating Arrow.

Later, Kotori had learned that the material out of which the head of the Arrow had been constructed had not been bronze or any Earth-born metal. The head of the Arrow had been carved from a meteor that had fallen to Earth approximately fifty millennia before Kotori had been born. This Arrow, one of many, had been one of a long and storied past, though the question of how it had ended up in the Sonoda family dojo continued to elude her.

Umi had instructed both of the other girls to sit on the floor, and had then specified that their palms should be on the floor as well. Umi had looked from the Arrow to her friends’ hands and back before sighing. Kotori had started to grow suspicious of the situation.

At the age of seven, Umi had not been as much of a stick in the mud as she had grown to be later in life. A combination of perpetually dealing with Honoka’s antics and an unquenchable desire to excel in both academics and athletics had instilled in Umi a sense of discipline, both for herself and others (but mostly Honoka). However, at the time of standing in that room holding what could have been one of the world’s greatest biohazards, she had not yet developed her instinct to avoid participating in any activities she considered improper.

That had probably been why Umi had found it so easy to drive the Arrow straight through the back of Kotori’s left hand.

Kotori did not remember much of what had happened immediately after that beyond a feeling of _incredible_ nausea and a brief scuffle between Umi and Honoka which had ended with the former piercing the latter through the left shin. What Kotori _did_ remember was that at some point both she and Honoka had found themselves staring directly at Umi’s Shot to the Heart.

The rules of the Arrow were simple: either it gave you a Stand or it killed you. Its rules were not _nice_ , but they were simple. Well, apparently there was more to it than that, but the only data the girls ever received about Stands were usually given through fractured tenth-hand accounts of poorly-understood events. Either way, as Umi had ended up explaining, the fact that neither of the two had died from being stabbed had meant that the two of them had become Stand users.

Umi’s description of exactly _how_ to manifest a Stand had been lacking to say the least, however. It had involved a large amount of wishy-washy statements and assertions that one needed to _feel it_ , whatever that had meant. Annoyingly, Honoka had actually managed to manifest her Stand fairly soon after acquiring it (and had promptly knocked herself out testing its powers), whereas Kotori had spent a good fifteen minutes attempting to bring her Stand forth, and had succeeded only at turning her own face red.

Unfortunately, Umi’s parents had arrived before Kotori had been able to make any progress, so she had been forced to return home (making a quick detour to drop a half-asleep Honoka off at her house) with nothing to show for her ordeal but the scar on the back of her hand.

Wounds caused by the Arrow had a tendency to either fail to heal at all or to heal abnormally quickly. There rarely appeared to be any rhyme or reason for which one occurred, though healing abnormally quickly usually did not leave a scar. Kotori had not known any of this at the time, and therefore had not been able to ponder any potential implications. Instead, she had simply spent most of the walk home staring at the scar in question.

Kotori had been no stranger to scars, what with having a few on her legs from early childhood surgeries. Those scars, however, had become faded to the point of being nearly indistinguishable over the course of time. This new scar was quite fresh in comparison, and easily visible against her otherwise smooth skin. Kotori had been so focused on it as she had walked home that she had not noticed the unusual lightness of her steps.

Upon reaching her house, Kotori had been about to knock, as usual, but then she had noticed something. The doorbell button, which Kotori had distinctly remembered being located just a tad too high to reach without jumping for her tiny frame, had found itself at the same height as Kotori’s head. Being seven, which had meant that she had possessed both a greater willingness to suspend disbelief and an outlook on life depicting her as the protagonist of everyone’s story, Kotori had simply concluded that the doorbell button must have been moved down at some point in order to accommodate her.

Kotori had never rung the doorbell before, so she had not been of the mind to give up this chance. Therefore, instead of knocking like usual, she had rnug the doorbell.

Kotori had heard a faint “Who is it?” from inside the house, which Kotori had supposed she should have expected. She had been used to being recognized by her knock (a combination of a distinctive knock pattern, as well as weak, tiny fists, had always made it easy), so she had been expecting a “Hello, Kotori!” instead, but it had not been within Kotori’s repertoire to be able to personalize ringing a doorbell.

It had been a while since Kotori had been forced to announce her presence at her house, so she had been out of practice. Nonetheless, she had found her voice soon enough. “It’s me, Mom!”

“Kotori? How’d you ring the doorbell? ”

Kotori had been confused at the question. She had been able to ring the doorbell because the doorbell had easily been within reach. Had the doorbell not been lowered to her height?

Maybe she had grown; maybe that had been her Stand power.

In order to confirm her theory, Kotori had looked downwards. Upon looking downwards, she had discovered that she had not, in fact, grown.

Had Kotori been older and more observant, she would have noticed the truth of the situation much sooner. Arguably, she should have noticed even at her young age; she had possessed peripheral vision just like almost everyone else. However, she had not, and so, as she had stared down at her feet, which had been hovering about half a metre off the ground, she had found she could only stare in silence.

“Kotori?” Her mother had been right at the door, and incredibly worried from the sound of it. It had probably had something to do with Kotori’s extremely unusual behaviour. Aside from ringing the doorbell, she had been incredibly unresponsive as compared to how she had usually behaved upon returning home.

After receiving no reply, Kotori’s mother had swung the door open (it had been an inwards-opening door, thankfully), only to find her daughter hovering in midair, staring down at her own feet. She had also noticed Kotori’s new scar.

That night had been a long one.

* * *

 

As Kotori watched Honoka and Umi argue with one another, the memories of that day came back to her. Kotori could trace a large amount of Umi’s reservations towards giving this first-year about whom Honoka was talking a Stand to that day. Her mother’s first reaction to seeing her daughter floating in the air had been to scream; her second reaction had been to frantically call Umi’s parents.

This had resulted in a long interfamilial conversation as exactly what Kotori’s newfound powers had been and what they had implied moving forward had been explained to her mother. Umi had come out of the experience with a newfound guilt complex from having traumatized Kotori’s mother. That, combined with the severe admonishing she had received about how Stands were not toys, had led to Umi’s current philosophy: no using the Arrow except in emergencies.

What, exactly, constituted an emergency Kotori did not know, and she doubted Umi knew either. It probably involved some megalomaniac with no respect for human life moving within an uncomfortable distance of the girls.

Kotori was not participating in the argument, which was hardly unusual. It was not that Kotori did not have an opinion on the matter (or opinions in general); it was simply that arguments between Honoka and Umi were always a battle between an unstoppable force and an immovable object, respectively. Essentially every point for either side would eventually be espoused; Kotori was unneeded in the opinion department.

Kotori, thus, was often relegated to the duty of mediator. Frankly, she preferred being a mediator most of the time. Aside from not enjoying confrontation in the first place, it gave her an opportunity to observe her friends closely. Over the years, she had learned exactly how her two friends ticked; she knew their likes, their dislikes, and had a solid grasp on how either of them would act if certain buttons were pushed.

Lately, she had been trying to figure out how to push buttons to achieve a very specific end (though whether she herself even _wanted_ that end was another matter entirely). Success seemed far off; they could both be so dense when it came to matters of romance.

Though Honoka seemed to know _something_ was up, considering she felt the need to clarify every potential double entendre whenever Kotori was in earshot. What that meant, Kotori only had inklings.

Kotori did not act on inklings.

Kotori did not do much acting in the first place, preferring to let the winner in the trio’s frequent battles of the minds (though that was giving Honoka too much credit) take the reins for most decisions. However, not every problem in her life could be solved by passing the responsibility onto her friends.

For example, it was clear the situation of her friends’ feelings was not going to change anytime soon without Kotori’s input.

Kotori glanced at the box on the table. It was empty, and she had only had two _manjuu_. Clearly Umi had her reasons for always refusing the Kousaka family’s goods. Though, her uncharacteristic lack of self-control around the food may have simply been a by-product of her irate mood.

Considering the subject matter, Kotori had been expecting to have a full-time job on her hands attempting to keep one of the girls from headbutting the other in the stomach (it had happened before). However, a combination of the sensitivity of the information (the walls in the bakery were paper-thin) and the fact roughhousing was likely to draw the attention of an angry Kousaka matriarch had led the two to keep their voices down and their tempers in check.

So far, they were not quite at loggerheads, but it had not been smooth; Umi had acquiesced that it was fully within her power to scope out whether this girl would acquire a Stand from being shot with the Arrow, and even gain a rudimentary idea of what that Stand would be. However, convincing her into actually giving the girl a Stand was the hard part.

Umi simply considered being a Stand user inherently dangerous; Stand users attracted other Stand users, and there were quite a few bad eggs out there. Umi was worried that giving this girl a Stand would result in finding her lying bifurcated on the sidewalk whilst walking to school.

A surprisingly violent image, coming from Umi, but Kotori supposed it was warranted.

And with that, the conversation had stopped for a minute as both girls collected their thoughts. Kotori was left looking between the two girls, and was waiting for one of them to start the argument back up. The atmosphere felt tense.

She wondered what would happen if the tension in the room were of a different sort. She could picture Honoka sliding up next to Umi, as the black-haired girl turned to face her in surprise. Honoka would bring her face closer to Umi’s, as…

“Hey! I have an idea!” Honoka suddenly exclaimed.

Oh, right. There was an argument going on. She would have to save those thoughts for when she got home.

“I’m listening.” Umi’s words and her facial expression were in disagreement, but Honoka plowed on anyway.

“Why don’t we let her in to the club, and then sort of… ease her into the idea of Stands?”

Umi looked incredulous. “Ease her in?”

“Yeah! You know, like, keep doing stuff that normal people can’t do, until she becomes convinced that we have special powers. Then we explain what Stands are to her.”

Umi’s expression had not changed. “Why would we engage in whatever hijinks you have in store before we tell her about Stands instead of telling her from the start?”

Honoka looked at Umi like that had been the strangest question she had ever heard. “Because otherwise she’ll think we’re crazy. She needs to be convinced something’s up with us.”

“So why not accompany it with, say, Kotori using Butterfly to walk on the ceiling instead of spending however long _easing her in_ would take?”

Butterfly, or, as the trio pronounced it, _Batafurai_ , had been the name Kotori had given to her Stand. She had not seen it at the time she had first manifested it, but Butterfly manifested as two razor-sharp (which Honoka had found out the hard way; she still had a mark on her right index finger), grey butterfly wings on her back. Luckily for the Minami family’s budget, they seemed to be able to phase through Kotori’s clothes without damaging them.

Honoka’s look became even more patronizing, which seemed to be annoying Umi to no end. “Because then we’d just scare her off. We need to get her invested in the club before we show her what we can really do. Then, we explain what Stands are to her and all the responsibilities of having one and ask her if she wants one for herself.”

It was a surprisingly coherent plan coming from Kousaka Honoka, who had once come up with a plan that had involved using Kotori’s Stand to cut through a deadbolt (skin she could manage; steel not so much). Of course, Umi was not one to give up easily.

“And what if she refuses, meaning we just gave away information about Stands to a non-Stand user?”

Honoka looked perplexed. “Is that, like, illegal or something?”

Umi looked unimpressed. “No. However, I do not think it sets a good example: the less people who know about Stands, the better. It’s less work for the Speedwagon Foundation that way.”

Kotori felt it was time to speak up. “Well, we do need more members for the club.”

Umi turned to Kotori with a look of betrayal. Kotori merely smiled back. Umi did not seem _viscerally_ opposed to the idea, so a small, charming smile was probably good enough to convince her, or at least to get her to mull the idea over.

Kotori knew she was pretty, but one would think a decade of friendship would make Umi immune to the cute girl act. She rarely used it because it always felt too manipulative, but it was rather funny how much Kotori could get Umi to do with a well-timed _bounce_.

Umi sighed. “Fine. However, you need to actually convince her to join the club, Honoka.”

Honoka’s face brightened. “Just wait and see, Umi-chan!”

Kotori smiled to herself. The days to come were sure to be interesting.

* * *

 

**STAND NAME:** Butterfly ( **バタフライ** [ _Batafurai_ ]), Immature

**STAND USER:** Minami Kotori ( **南ことり** ), Seven Years Old

**Power:** D

**Speed:** D

**Range:** E

**Durability:** C

**Precision:** A

**Potential:** B

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I actually had to look up what a deadbolt was to make sure I wasn’t talking nonsense:  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_bolt
> 
> Butterfly’s name is inspired by Love is Like a Butterfly by Dolly Parton. Don’t ask.


	6. Kotori's Bizarre Costume

Umi’s day could have gone better. It had not been a disaster, but it could have gone better.

She had arrived at school twenty minutes before she usually did (which meant she had been forty minutes early), as agreed upon by the trio the night before. Though the conversation concerning the first-year to whom Honoka had taken a shine (despite not having bothered to even ask for her name) had been the main reason Honoka had invited them over, they had also ended up discussing other matters. One such matter had been the question of when their first performance would be.

A magic club without public performances was, after all, unlikely to attract potential new students to the school.

They had settled on a time and date; their first performance would be after school on New Student Orientation Day, taking place on May fifth. In order to finalize this, they had decided to arrive at school early (seven-fifty, to be exact) and ask the student council for permission to use the auditorium during that time. Unfortunately, Honoka had not arrived at seven-fifty, and Umi and Kotori had been left staring at the student council room door for a full thirteen minutes before Honoka had shown up, panting and wheezing.

The actual process of getting permission had been surprisingly smooth, though not without a hiccup. The trio had calmly walked into the room (managing to avoid posing like idiots this time; Umi was still embarrassed about that) and Honoka had handed Ayase the form (filled out by Umi) asking for permission to use the auditorium during the relevant time.

Considering that, technically, the request had not been for club-related activities (the three girls just happened to have been attempting to form a club at the moment), the student council had not had any reasons to reject the proposal. Toujou had, herself, helpfully pointed this out upon seeing her superior attempting to find reasons to forbid it.

However, in the process of explaining the reason for reserving the auditorium, Honoka had made known that they were planning on holding their first magic show then and there, which had been something Umi had expressly told her _not_ to do.

Hiccup aside, they had reserved a time and a place for their first magic show. It had been exactly thirty days away, so they would need to practice long and hard in order to put on a good show when the time would come. Ideally, that would have been the end of administrative affairs for the day as Umi would plan out their practicing schedule. Of course, when something involved Honoka, Umi always had to be on her toes.

Break had come, and Umi had started scolding Honoka about screwing up reserving the auditorium whilst they had sat underneath their tree outside. Honoka had turned to Umi to ask her what the problem had been, but had asked that question around a mouthful of bread. The display, though cute (not that Umi would have ever said that aloud), had sidetracked Umi into a discussion about Honoka’s weight instead of more pressing matters.

Seriously: there was no way Honoka could keep eating all that bread and maintain her figure.

It had been then that a group of three girls in their year whom Honoka happened to know had shown up. Umi was fairly certain their given names were Fumiko, Hideko, and Mika, though their family names always eluded her (she had no idea how this was possible). Umi had not interacted with them much in the past, but Honoka liked them, so she had never seen any reason to begrudge their presence.

It did not hurt that they were of the blessed group of students who did not spend an inordinate amount of time staring at Umi with creepy looks on their faces.

“Hey, you guys!” Hideko (the one with the orange hair) had exclaimed.

“We saw the notice.” Fumiko (the one with the purple hair) had followed up.

It had turned out that the notice in question had been a poster Honoka had put up on the school’s notice board advertising the upcoming magic show. Honoka had, of course, put this up without notifying Umi of it beforehand. Umi had appreciated Honoka’s unusual display of acting proactively, but it had gone without saying that the idea of putting up the poster should have been run past Umi first.

Despite going without saying, Umi had said it anyway.

Honoka’s excuse had been that she had run the idea past Kotori instead, and that she had been fine with the idea. Umi had hardly found it impressive that Kotori had gone along with Honoka’s poster; Kotori had once spent fifteen minutes attempting to slice open a deadbolt with Butterfly at Honoka’s request. One of the rules about which Umi regularly planned her life was that if Honoka suggested something and Umi was not in the immediate vicinity to veto it, Kotori would follow the order.

The problem with Honoka having put up the poster (aside from the aforementioned lack of intra-group communication) had been that Umi had been worried about the consequences of a potential flop come the night of the performance. A quietly-advertised event going south would be a blemish, but potentially a temporary one. A widely-advertised event going south could seal their fates the moment it occurred.

The next order of business had come up when the two had arrived at their classroom. It had been a bit before the end of break, meaning Kotori had been one of the only other students in the room. She had been situated at her desk, scribbling something in a sketchbook.

Umi and Honoka had taken their seats next to Kotori, who had proudly held up what she had been sketching: a design for a stage costume. The drawing itself had been somewhat simplistic, and somehow childish in style, but it had been detailed enough to discern the design of the theoretical costume on the cartoon that Kotori had drawn.

Honoka had found the design cute ( _very_ cute, if the fact she had not been able to shut up about it had been any indication), but Umi’s attention had been drawn specifically to the drawing’s skirt.

That skirt design had been _far_ too short.

In reality, the proposed design had only been a few centimetres shorter than the skirt Umi had been wearing at that moment as part of her school uniform. However, as far as Umi had been concerned, there may as well have not been a skirt in the picture Kotori drew for all it would cover up.

There was no way Umi was going to wear such a costume.

She had worriedly glanced down at her own skirt upon seeing the design, which Honoka had noticed, but had taken as a sign of Umi thinking her legs had been too fat for the proposed costume, rather than what Umi had actually been thinking. This had led them off-topic, and though she had, apparently, convinced the other two girls to go on a diet in the interim, she had not been able to voice her complaint before Kotori had brought up the next order of business.

What would their name be?

Most magician troupes had a name of some sort. Umi, ever a stickler for tradition, had been fully onboard with the idea to give their magic club a name beyond _The Otonokizaka High School Magic Club_.

There had been just one problem: they had not been able to come up with a name.

Honoka’s solution to this dilemma had been to stick a box underneath the poster she had previously put up. Into the box one could place a piece of paper with a potential name for the group. Honoka had outsourced naming the group to the student populace.

Umi had found the idea silly, though it had given her an excuse to actually look at the poster that had been put up advertising their first show. The poster had been rather well-drawn, with the trio of girls (drawn in a _chibi_ art style) standing in front of the school, with large block kanji and kana advertising the event (and, recently added, a few scribbles noting the box below the poster).

There had, thankfully, only been one other thing Umi had had to put up with before school had ended for the day, and that had been attempting to find a spot to practice. Most large areas had already been commandeered by other groups, and empty classrooms had been locked (not that Umi would have ever agreed with using an empty classroom for personal reasons without permission).

Their search for a space to practice had driven them to the roof of the school.

Overall, the roof had not been a horrible choice for club activities. It was spacious, and its lack of a covering meant Kotori could literally spread her wings. It was also out of the way of the majority of student traffic. Though, Umi would have preferred something less vulnerable to errant weather.

The trio had decided to celebrate their newfound training area by actually training in it. They had formed a horizontal line, faced forward, and…

Collectively, they had all realized they actually had had no idea how to put on a magic show.

* * *

 

It was with these thoughts in mind that Umi arrived at Honoka’s house for the second evening in a row. As a group, they lacked a name, they had a third-rate practice area, they lacked members (speaking of that, Umi was fairly certain Honoka had made precisely zero attempts to find that redhead today), and they had no idea what they were going to do once they got up on stage.

This was where the average Kousaka Honoka plan would break down, and Umi had half a mind to let it. Unfortunately, that poster that had been put up meant that nixing the Stand user club came with damage control; promise-breaker was _not_ going to become part of Umi’s image.

Though, damaging her image _could_ lead to less people sending her strange fan letters. Just today someone had sent her a picture of a plushy doll made in her likeness. It had been well-made, she would admit. She would admit nothing further, beyond that it was exceptionally creepy.

Honoka’s response to this crime against nature had come in typical Honoka fashion. She had possessed the audacity to describe the act of making a plushy of a _real person_ without their consent as _cute_ , and had declared that she had wanted her own Umi plushy.

Umi had made it very clear that if Honoka ever sought out an Umi plushy she would pay for it in secrets. Kotori had simply sat there watching the exchange with a strange look on her face.

As Umi walked into Homura, she found Honoka’s mother sitting down, eating some of the merchandise. Every time she visited this place she became more and more convinced there was no way it was operating in the black.

“Oh, welcome!” Honoka’s mother greeted, with her mouth still half-full of pastry. It was almost as disgusting as when Honoka did it, but Umi was _polite_ and thus said nothing. The older woman quickly put down the dumplings she was holding and went to wipe her hands.

“Good evening. Where is Honoka?” Umi was fairly certain she already knew the answer to her own question, but she gave a standard polite greeting anyway. There was no need to simply barge upstairs in someone else’s house, even if she was welcome.

Now wiping her hands, and having swallowed her food, Honoka’s mother responded. “She’s upstairs. Say, would you like some dumplings?” She gestured to the _dango_ dumplings in front of her, which she, presumably, was supposed to be selling, not giving away and eating.

Money laundering scheme or not, the Kousaka bakery made quite the pastry. Unfortunately, Umi had eaten multiple months’ worth of _manjuu_ (which was less than a box, but that was beside the point) over the span of one evening last night, so more sweets were out of the question for a while.

Besides, Honoka and Kotori were apparently on diets now, so they would not be eating any dumplings anytime soon either. She decided she may as well stand in solidarity with them, so she declined the offer and walked upstairs.

Umi noticed Honoka’s younger sister opening her bedroom door and giving Umi a strange look before closing it again as Umi walked down the hallway. She did not understand that girl.

Opening the door to Honoka’s room, she found the other second-years sitting at the table. On the table sat Honoka’s laptop, and an open box of dumplings pilfered from downstairs.

Somehow, this development surprised Umi. She was not entirely certain why she had trusted Honoka to go through with her diet, considering she had made the promise on a whim, and that she was _Honoka_ , but she had. She slowly sat down, as Honoka poured her a cup of green tea.

It appeared Honoka and Kotori were _also_ drinking green tea. Not in and of itself an offense, but Umi knew that neither of the two could stand tea that had not had so much sugar poured into it that it had hit the saturation point.

“Aren’t you two supposed to be on a diet?” Umi asked, after sitting down. This prompted the other two to look at one another in shock. So they had not disregarded it completely; they had simply forgotten. Either way, it hardly boded well. “You two _are_ taking this seriously, right?”

Upon receiving no answer, Umi decided to bring up the reason she and Kotori had come over to Honoka’s house in the first place. “Anyway, what are we going to do for our show?”

“We’re going to be using our Stands for it, right?” Honoka asked, as though the question needed to be asked in the first place.

“Was that not the original purpose of the club?” Umi distinctly remembered Honoka’s original plan being a Stand user club; the magic part had come second in a slapdash attempt to keep Umi from throwing the idea away, as she had always done with Honoka’s silly schemes.

“Well, then we just… do Stand stuff!”

“Stand stuff.” Honoka was hardly a modern-day Dazai, but Umi had been hoping that sentence would end with more eloquence. She knew where Honoka was going with her train of thought, but she decided she was going to make Honoka work to explain it. She clearly needed the practice with practical Japanese.

“You know…” Honoka began moving her arms around in a display apparently meant to inspire sudden clarity in Umi. When Umi only stared at Honoka with an unamused expression on her face, she sighed.

“Take Kotori.” Honoka gestured to the girl in question. Kotori started at the mention of her name, stopping whatever she had been doing (staring at the wall, as far as Umi could tell). Honoka continued. “She can use her Stand to fly. So we make her do things you couldn’t do without the ability to fly.”

“So you’re saying we should figure out how each of our Stands can be used for personalized magic tricks.” As far as Umi was concerned, they had not actually figured anything out yet; Umi had been working under that exact assumption from the beginning. She supposed it did not hurt to lay out the ground rules, however. “So, say, Kotori could hang in the air or walk upside-down…”

Honoka was nodding enthusiastically at this, ever easily-impressed, so Umi continued with her musings.

“I could probably do something resembling mind-reading, and you could…”

Umi stared at Honoka as she tried to discern how putting people to sleep could turn into a magic trick easily. Putting random audience members to sleep seemed antithetical to their goals of exciting people, as it was hard to enjoy a magic show whilst asleep. At the same time, it _could_ excite the other audience members enough to offset any negatives.

They could also save it until the end, so the volunteers would not end up missing much of the rest of the show, though that could be a rather lackluster finish.

“You’re really thinking hard about this.” Honoka’s voice broke Umi out of her thoughts.

“Of course I am; we only have a month to prepare for the show, you know.”

“I know. And that you’re thinking so hard about this…” Honoka started sliding closer to Umi around the table, in a conspiratorial way, “… is why I think _you_ should plan out our show!”

“Me?” Umi was not particularly impressed with the suggestion. On the one hand, of the three girls present, she was probably the most fit for the job. On the other, she could not help but feel this was Honoka’s way of pawning unwanted work onto her.

“I’ll be too busy making the costumes to do any show planning.” Kotori spoke up for the first time that evening. Considering how little fabric was apparently going to go into the costumes, Umi found it hard to believe it would take an entire month to make three of them. However, Umi knew enough about the world to know it was unwise for a novice to question a master; Kotori knew a great deal more about the art of costume creation than Umi did.

But seriously, was that drawing supposed to have been of a stage costume or a stripper costume?

Even with Kotori out of the picture, what was stopping Honoka from planning…

Actually, that was a very silly question to ask.

Umi sighed. “Fine. I will plan out the show. On the topic of the group, have you talked to that redhead yet?”

Honoka shook her head. “Not yet. I’ve been thinking, actually: if we get her into the club, what are we going to make her do? She doesn’t have a Stand yet.”

Umi considered the question. “Well, you said she could sing and play the piano. Do you know of any magic tricks involving music? Preferably, we would have her perform ones people without Stands can perform.”

Honoka scrunched up her face and then pulled over her laptop. Umi and Kotori shuffled to get a look at the screen as she typed _school magic music_ into the search bar. Umi was not quite sure why she had specified _school_ , but that thought was quickly forgotten once Honoka hit Enter.

The first result was an article on, oddly enough, a school idol group: something about how their music was like magic. Honoka seemed oddly interested in it.

“UTX… Hey, that’s the school Yukiho’s going to! Apparently they’re its main attraction.”

“Oh, really?” Umi tried to get a closer look. “What’s the name of this idol group?”

Honoka skimmed the article until she found it. “Looks like their name is… A-RISE.”

* * *

 

**STAND NAME:** Butterfly ( **バタフライ** [ _Batafurai_ ])

**STAND USER:** Minami Kotori ( **南ことり** )

**Power:** C

**Speed:** D

**Range:** D

**Durability:** C

**Precision:** A

**Potential:** B

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I looked up the average Japanese school schedule just to make sure the times and dates lined up:  
> https://www.tokyo-icc.jp/guide_eng/educ/01.html  
> http://www.pref.osaka.lg.jp/jidoseitoshien/shugaku/g_english/shu_2_8.html


	7. Umi's Bizarre Manifestation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I believe I have not accidentally written Honoka when I meant Hanayo anywhere in this chapter but I make no promises.

Koizumi Hanayo had met Hoshizora Rin in elementary school. Hanayo had been a shy, reserved child, whereas Rin had been energetic and outgoing. Hanayo had been every bit the stereotypical girl, and had even expressed a desire to eventually become an idol. Rin, on the other hand, had fallen under no such classification. For example, as a child, she had elected to wear shorts and pants instead of the more traditional attire of skirts.

On the surface, it had appeared to be quite the odd friendship, but the two had always stuck by one another, and had grown up essentially conjoined at the hip.

Annoyingly, as they had grown older, and their classmates’ minds had grown cruder, questions of the exact configuration in which the two’s hips were joined had occasionally cropped up. However, Rin had always been there for Hanayo, informing their classmates of exactly what she had thought of those accusations.

She had never thought highly of them.

Their friendship had frequently manifested as a series of pulls. Hanayo would pull Rin along to participate in some idol-related activity, and Rin would pull Hanayo along to engage in some activity that usually involved a large amount of flashing lights or physical exertion.

So it had been on Tuesday, the second day of their first year of high school, as Hanayo had pulled Rin along (literally, as she had been holding her by the wrist) in the early morning on the way to UTX.

UTX would not have normally been Hanayo’s destination heading out the door in the morning; usually she and Rin would have arrived at Otonokizaka instead, as that was the school they were attending. However, Tuesday had been relatively special, and so the two had gotten up early (though Rin had made a giant fuss about it) in order to show up at UTX in the morning whilst still being able to arrive at their actual school on time.

The two had arrived just in time as they had approached the crowd huddled outside the school. The crowd had appeared to be made up of other teenagers, with the majority wearing what must have been the UTX uniform.

There had, however, been one girl on the outskirts of the crowd that had caught Hanayo’s eye. She had been wearing some strange sunglasses-and-surgical-mask combination that must have been lifted straight from a magazine; whether that magazine had been for _avant-garde_ fashion tips or for advice on how to disguise oneself whilst remaining as conspicuous as possible had not been information to which Hanayo had been privy.

Hanayo had _also_ noticed the small portion of the girl’s skirt that had been sticking out below her brown jacket. There had been no mistaking it: it had been an Otonokizaka skirt. It had appeared that she and Rin had not been the only members of their school’s populace to show up to the special event at UTX.

Strangely, Hanayo had felt as though something had been missing from the picture. Three people here from their school had seemed… off. Somehow, she had been expecting a fourth. However, she had found no logical reason to be expecting such an occurrence, and so had simply dismissed the thought. She had had more important things on which she should have been focusing.

She had turned her head back to the giant screen set up above the entrance to the school just as it had started playing the video for which the two girls, and the crowd as a whole, had come. On the screen had been A-RISE, UTX’s school idol group, performing one of their hit songs, _Private Wars_ , live.

Hanayo had always adored idols, so she had always made efforts to come to events such as these. It had been a shame she had not been a member of UTX; she would have loved to attend the same school as the members of _the_ A-RISE. Alas, Otonokizaka had been the more convenient option travel-wise, and it had also been the only school whose entrance exam requirements Rin had been able to pass (the cut-off score for Otonokizaka had been, literally, one percent).

In high school, as in the rest of their lives, where Rin went, Hanayo followed. At least Otonokizaka had a relatively well-respected curriculum, even if was about to close down.

As Hanayo had watched the members of A-RISE dance on the screen, she had not been able to help but notice how the performance had seemed… off. However, she had not been able to determine what about it had been off at first, which she had found strange. Hanayo had seen many A-RISE videos in her lifetime, so she had usually been able to pick up on their subtleties.

There had been the polished, professional videos, done in a studio and requiring multiple takes. Those videos had been meant to be viewed on video-sharing sites long after the respective performances, after a healthy dose of video editing. Hanayo had thought herself capable of spotting such video editing, and she had not been able to immediately see anything resembling the usual tricks A-RISE had always used as she watched the screen.

Then there had been the live performance videos, usually either streamed to the public on a screen (like then) or uploaded immediately after the performance. Those videos had rarely contained any editing beyond a filter or two. They had also frequently featured the occasional minor misstep: a foot that had landed a centimetre or two from where it should have landed, or an arm that had been outstretched just a moment before the ideal time to do so. Indeed, Hanayo had already noticed the former of such lapses in this very video.

The lack of any obvious editing, as well as the typical signs of a live performance, had led Hanayo to believe that A-RISE had been honest with their fans: what Hanayo had been watching had, in fact, been a live performance. This had raised an obvious question: what had it been about the video that had earned Hanayo’s suspicion?

From next to her, Rin had spoken up. “Kayo-chin?” Her voice had been soft, obviously trying not to disturb the rest of the crowd. Kayo had been Rin’s nickname for Hanayo, derived from _Kayo_ being an alternate reading of the kanji making up Hanayo’s given name.

“Rin-chan?” Hanayo had murmured back.

“Doesn’t that video look kinda weird?” It had appeared that Rin had noticed whatever the problem with the video had been as well. _That_ had been strange; Rin had known next to nothing about the intricacies of video editing. If Rin had noticed something about the video, then something must have been decidedly wrong with it.

Hanayo had spared a glance around the crowd. They had all been staring at the screen with rapt attention, taking in the spectacle. Nobody else had seemed to be aware of whatever had been wrong with the video in front of them.

Well, perhaps the girl from their school (the one in the getup that had made her look like a character in an art film that had also been a horror movie) had noticed; it had been impossible to tell with her face entirely covered.

Hanayo had turned and concentrated on the screen, determined to find out exactly what had been bothering her about it. Upon closer inspection, she had noticed that, occasionally, the colour being displayed on the screen around the dancers’ legs had shifted nearly imperceptibly. It had almost resembled a very faint fog.

“Rin-chan, look at their legs.” Hanayo had pointed her hand at the screen to emphasize the point.

Rin had stared at the legs in question, and had appeared to notice the same colour distortions Hanayo had noticed. “That’s weird, _nya_.”

The performance had soon come to a close, prompting the crowd to disperse. The majority of the crowd had funneled themselves into the school in front of them, but the two girls had not had such an option, so they had started walking to their own school.

Hanayo had snuck a glance behind her. The girl in the mask had still been standing there, staring at the now-black screen. Had she noticed the same thing Hanayo and Rin had noticed? Had she just had a stroke? Unfortunately, Hanayo had not been able to find out, as Rin had kept pulling on her arm, yelling about being late.

Hanayo had found it hard to concentrate in class that day.

* * *

 

Hanayo arrived, alongside Rin, at their classroom the following Monday in the early morning. There was a sort of peace to the (single) first-year classroom in the time before any classes began. There were few students in the room, meaning conversation was typically kept to a minimum to avoid being overheard. This left the room quiet, allowing Hanayo to get lost in her thoughts.

Hanayo had spent the better part of the weekend poring over a variety of A-RISE videos in a vain attempt to catch a glimpse of that mysterious discolouring she had noticed on Tuesday. It had been eating at her all of last week and she was no closer to an answer as to what it could have been. She had even watched a multitude of videos from other performers (even Dream, a school idol group from the Fukuoka region which she considered to be vastly overrated), wondering if perhaps this had been something A-RISE had picked up from another idol group.

There was one possibility which Hanayo had always kept in the back of her mind. It was a hypothesis strengthened by the fact the rest of the crowd had not noticed the effect, whereas she and Rin had. However, that conjecture came with its own problems and implications which Hanayo did not even want to begin considering.

Hanayo was busy mulling this over, watching Rin fidgeting in her seat out of the corner of her eye, when the door to the classroom slid open.

In the doorway stood three second-year students, as indicated by their school uniforms’ ribbons. There was one with orange hair, standing on her left leg and holding her right hand in a v-sign next to her head. To either side of her were two other girls. One was a girl with long, black hair (though it looked somewhat blue in the light), also sporting a v-sign right hand (with thumb extended), with her left hand on her hip. The other girl had long, light-brown (it looked grey, frankly, but that would probably be rude to say) hair holding _both_ of her hands in thumb-extended v-signs in front of her.

Hanayo recognized these three girls, but she could not place their faces to names.

The two girls to either side of the centre one held their poses for a little over two seconds before immediately straightening themselves, cheeks bright red. The girl in the centre also straightened up, though she appeared to lack the self-consciousness of the other two. The majority of the first-years in the room started snickering at the display.

Hanayo, however, was not snickering. Though, logically, the display had been ridiculous, she had found it strangely enrapturing. Her focus was now entirely on these posing second-years, and she could tell from her peripheral vision that Rin was just as captivated.

The three girls walked to the front of the class, which was lacking a teacher at the moment, and the central girl started speaking.

“Hello, first-year students! I’m Kousaka Honoka, and I’m a magician!”

_Now_ Hanayo knew who these girls were. She had seen their poster last week; it had been advertising their upcoming magic show. She doubted she would be attending, but she remembered their names.

Kousaka seemed quite energetic, and was facing the class with a bright smile on her face. The girl with black hair, whom Hanayo recognized as Sonoda Umi, on the other hand, was staring at the back wall of the classroom with a grimace on her face. It appeared Kousaka’s peer was not nearly as enthused about the current situation as Kousaka herself was.

Kousaka’s introduction had caused the people in the classroom to exchange looks of confusion and amusement between one another. This seemed to surprise Kousaka. Hanayo heard her start muttering to herself. “Huh? None of them know me.”

Sonoda’s expression changed from a grimace to exasperation. “Why would anybody here know you?”

The brunette, Minami Kotori, took this moment to start speaking to Kousaka. She seemed like the type who blended into the background easily; Hanayo felt a sort of kinship with her. “Honoka-chan, where’s the girl you said was good at playing piano?”

Playing piano? They must have been talking about Nishikino Maki. Nishikino was the archetypical rich prodigy. She had stellar grades, musical talent, was set to inherit a fortune (and a hospital), and had absolutely no desire to interact with her fellow students.

Granted, the stereotypical rich prodigy’s lack of social skills typically stemmed from a visceral aversion to so much as laying their eyes upon a poor person. To Hanayo, Nishikino just seemed like she was shy.  This, of course, had not stopped Rin from jokingly wondering aloud to Hanayo how Nishikino would react to being referred to as _ojou-sama_ on a few occasions last week.

Not that Rin would ever go through with something like that.

Nishikino had a penchant both for piano and for singing, a fact one could learn by being near the music room during break or after school. She spent all of her free time in the room in lieu of actually socializing, and even though Hanayo found her music skills on par with some of the top idol groups she followed, she had to admit it seemed as though Nishikino lived a lonely life.

As soon as the brunette asked about Nishikino’s whereabouts, the classroom door slid open to reveal her. Kousaka ran over to her immediately, apparently having come to the room solely for her. She put both her hands on Nishikino’s shoulders, causing the girl to blush and start stammering.

 “You got a minute?” Kousaka asked Nishikino.

“Me?” Nishikino asked back, despite Kousaka’s being in physical contact with her making the answer to that question rather obvious.

Kousaka started nodding her head vigorously, so Nishikino acquiesced and let Honoka drag her out of the room. Minami and Sonoda started following the two of them out of the room, but then Sonoda stopped.

Hanayo watched as a large bow suddenly manifested in Sonoda’s hand. Sonoda then proceeded to walk out of the room as though she had not conjured a bow from thin air and closed the door.

Hanayo immediately turned to Rin. “Rin-chan, d–did you just see that?” Hanayo made sure to whisper so that nosy students would not catch their conversation.

Rin nodded. “The bow? I saw it, _nya_.”

Hanayo had never met another person with a power like hers, besides Rin. This was beyond unprecedented, and Hanayo was at a loss as to what to make of this information.

“Let’s follow her, _nya_!”

Before Hanayo could raise protest, Rin had already pulled her out of her chair and then out of the classroom. Rin started running in the direction Sonoda had gone, and Hanayo struggled to keep up.

Rin had let go of her wrist, and she probably should have stopped running and headed back to class: class was starting in only a few minutes, and the girl after whom they were chasing was armed with a bow and had looked fit enough to use it. However, this was how it had always been. Wherever Rin went, Hanayo followed.

Their running took them to the door leading to the roof of the school (after a couple brief detours down empty hallways). It had been left open, and peeking through the door revealed the three second-years and Nishikino were standing on the roof.

Nishikino was leaning against the fence that surrounded the roof, sporting an expression that was a combination of annoyance and aloofness. Kousaka and Minami were standing near the opposite fence and Sonoda was standing off to the side, bow in hand.

“I’m not doing it”, Nishikino said. It appeared that, despite having run there, and despite having left the classroom only a few seconds after the girls, Hanayo and Rin had still missed a part of the conversation. Just as well; they were not there to snoop on the conversation, only to see what was up with Sonoda’s bow.

At least, Hanayo _hoped_ snooping on the conversation had not been one of Rin’s reasons for dragging her here.

Hanayo was not paying much attention to the conversation (something about music and magic). Instead, she was focusing entirely on the bow. It had an interesting design, if a little eccentric. Hanayo could not say she had ever seen a bow with blue swirls all over it.

If Nishikino noticed the bow, she did not think much of it, considering she was barely paying Sonoda any mind. Hanayo watched as a glowing arrow appeared in Sonoda’s right hand. Sonoda tried nocking the arrow inconspicuously, which was helped by Nishikino being unable to perceive the bow, but Hanayo had to imagine she looked ridiculous regardless.

She was not planning on shooting Nishikino with that thing, was she?

Umi raised the bow, aiming it directly at Nishikino. Hanayo felt like screaming. This could not be happening. It was in broad daylight, they had no alibi, and there was an entire class full of witnesses who had seen Nishikino walking off with them. Was this some sort of _Yakuza_ hit?

Sonoda loosed the arrow. Hanayo squeaked whilst Rin gripped her shoulder.

Nothing fatal occurred.

The arrow dissolved into nothingness as soon as it made contact with Nishikino, and a new arrow appeared in Sonoda’s hand. Nishikino had shown no reaction to being shot; she had flinched neither at the loosing of the arrow nor at being hit.

Hanayo felt relief flow through her. It was one thing to watch Rin attempt to deliberately die in a visual novel with a _yandere_ in it; witnessing actual murder was not on Hanayo’s to-do list.

With that brief scare behind her, Hanayo’s interest in Sonoda’s bow doubled. Clearly this bow was not much of a weapon, so what could its purpose be? Sonoda shot Nishikino a few more times, but all Hanayo could notice was that Sonoda’s arrow glowed white upon being summoned, but shifted to blue before being nocked.

“What are you two doing here?” The two Peeping Toms heard a voice behind them, and swiveled around in surprise.

In front of them stood the student council president, Ayase Eli, with a stern look on her face.

* * *

 

**INTERESTING LOCATION:** UTX High School ( **ユーティーエックス** [ _Yuu Tii Ekkusu_ ] **学院** )

**SPECIALTY:** Education

**Effectiveness:** A

**Cleanliness:** B

**Popularity:** A

Claims to fame include its idol group, A-RISE, as well as being the most modern school, technology-wise, in the greater Tokyo region.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More poses:  
> Honoka http://www.goodsmile.info/en/product/4882/figma+Honoka+Kosaka.html (second image)  
> Umi https://myfigurecollection.net/item/165424  
> Kotori http://www.amiami.com/top/detail/detail?gcode=FIGURE-011936


	8. Nozomi's Bizarre Observations

Eli stood, staring down at the two scared first years crouching by the door leading to the roof. Eli had never been quite sure how to feel about the fact that the majority of first-years reacted to her presence with fear. On the one hand, it definitely led to a lack of shenanigans on the part of the particularly rambunctious first-years; on the other hand, it meant that essentially an entire grade distrusted her, despite the fact that she did not really have any more disciplinary power than the custodian.

In this particular instance, however, she supposed the reaction was warranted.

Eli had been roaming the hallways of the school that morning, on the hunt for Kousaka or one of her flamboyant friends. She had checked the two second-year classrooms but had found the three in neither, and so had departed on a wild goose chase for the purported magicians. She had found herself standing in a hallway near the stairwell to the roof when she had heard the sound of people running.

It had seemed like as good of a lead as any at the time, so Eli had followed the sound of running until she had found herself behind two first-years (there were not that many, so Eli could recognize the appearances, if not the names, of most of them). The students in question had been staring through a crack in the door leading outside, through which Eli had been able to hear the muffled voices of people talking.

Eli had not been able to think of any concrete rule off the top of her head that forbade snooping on the conversations of other people in the school, much less the conversations of people in a place as open to the public as the roof. However, not being against the rules did not make an action morally sound; these students had clearly been invading the privacy of the people on the roof.

“What are you two doing here?”

In all fairness, the question had been asked by a quasi-authority-figure in an accusatory tone, so a reaction of shock and fear had been justifiable. Unfortunately, Eli could not shake the suspicion that the main reason these two were so scared was that she was Ayase Eli, the Student Council Ice Queen.

At least, that was probably the reason the orange-haired girl was scared. The brunette (or maybe it was more of a dark blonde; it was hard to tell in the dark lighting of the stairwell) looked like the type who melted into a puddle because a butterfly flapped its wings too fast near her.

Suddenly, the door to the roof swung open, revealing another first-year. Behind her, Eli could make out the magician trio. So that was where they had been.

The new first-year, another redhead (though her hair was a much darker red than the orange of the other first-year in the stairwell), looked around at the people already present. “Am I interrupting something?”

Having found her quarry, and not in the mood to dilly-dally, Eli decided she would cut the two amateur sleuths a break. Well, she was cutting them as much of a break as she could; there were only so many reasons the two of them could have found themselves in the roof stairwell at the same time their classmate was on the roof, and said classmate was bound to realize that.

“I was simply informing these two students that it’s almost time to get to class.”

She did not bother elaborating further; if the first-year pressed it with her classmates, she pressed it, but Eli had a mission to fulfil and the less time spent conversing with fifteen-year-olds the better.

Fortunately for all involved, the redhead seemed satisfied with that response, and so walked down the stairs, presumably to get back to class. The other two first-years looked at Eli in doubt, so she pointed down the steps. They took the hint and followed their classmate.

Eli stared at the door leading to the roof, which had been closed by the redhead on her way out. She could still hear noises beyond it. It appeared that whatever they had been discussing with that first-year had not been the end of their roof antics. Just as well; Eli preferred having them all in one place so she only needed to deliver her message once.

She pushed the door open, to be confronted with the scene of Kousaka and Sonoda fighting over a piece of paper whilst Minami watched. _These_ three were planning on becoming their school’s saviours?

Eli cleared her throat and walked up to the group, prompting Sonoda to stop grabbing for the paper (and Kousaka to pocket it thanks to the other’s lack of resistance). The three of them regarded her with surprise.

“Student Council President?” Kousaka asked, as though Eli did not have a name beyond her position. She was somewhat used to this, however, so she decided not to make a big deal out of it; what she was planning on saying was bound to lead to plenty of disagreement on its own, anyway. There was no need to start off the conversation with a lecture on the proper way to refer to one’s upperclasswoman.

“I’d like to speak with you for a moment.” Eli mainly directed this declaration at Kousaka; she seemed to be the _de facto_ leader of the trio. Kousaka stood up straighter, which Eli took as a sign to continue.

“I saw the poster you put up.”

Kousaka’s expression changed from a serious frown to an excited smile. “Oh! What did you think of it?”

“It was well-done.” Eli found no need to lie; there had been some serious artistic talent (most likely _not_ Kousaka’s) that had gone into that poster. Unfortunately for Kousaka, Eli was not here to play art critic. “However, I think that it being well-done might be a bad thing.”

Kousaka’s expression took on one of confusion as the rusty gears in her head ground together to parse the statement. Eli supposed the sentence was somewhat of a paradox, so she did not begrudge Kousaka on her lack of understanding. She, instead, continued, hoping the explanation would become apparent as she went on.

“I’ve been thinking about this ever since you told us you were planning on holding your show in a month.” Eli did not miss the annoyed look Sonoda shot Kousaka from behind the orange-haired girl’s back. “What are you planning on doing if your show doesn’t go well?”

The question seemed to catch Kousaka off-guard. It appeared Eli’s suspicions were correct: the thought of their show flopping had not so much as entered Kousaka’s mind. It was a good thing, then, that she had decided to give Kousaka this wake-up call.

“I believe if your show fails, it could harm the school’s image even further.”

Eli had been expecting to get into an argument upon starting her conversation with Kousaka, but she was, surprisingly, staying silent. She looked thoughtful, which indicated to Eli that she was actually considering what she had to say.

It appeared this would be significantly less painful than she had been dreading.

“I don’t want the school to disappear, either. That’s why I think you should stop acting as though saving the school is going to be easy.”

Eli, frankly, did not agree with this magic show. The principal had barred the student council from participating in any attempts to recruit new students, which meant that, barring any other adventurous student initiatives, the fate of their school was essentially resting on this trio’s shoulders. Said trio had plastered a giant poster in the hallway advertising a magic show twenty-five days away. Eli saw very few ways in which this could go well. If they pulled it off perfectly, then it could potentially drum up interest, but more than likely it would fail, which would drag down the school’s image past terminal levels, rendering it unsalvageable even if another group of students came along with a noble goal of their own.

Admittedly, Eli had not interacted much with Kousaka, but Kousaka gave off an air of confident optimism. Optimism was a good motivator, but the problem was that optimism, as Eli had been forced to learn the hard way in her life, could lead to a whimsical attitude when a serious one would be required instead. She was probably reading too much into her attitude to assume Kousaka actually thought reviving the school would be easy, but it never hurt to hammer home a point.

Eli had no authority to actually stop these three from going through with their plan, so the best she could do would be to convince them to actually buckle down, and stop fighting over pieces of paper.

Eli did not really have anything else to say, and Kousaka seemed to be lost in her own thoughts whilst her friends stood around awkwardly. She figured it would probably be best if she took her leave; classes were starting soon and Nozomi had been left alone in the student council room for a good fifteen minutes now, which meant she had probably wandered off absentmindedly.

“Excuse me”. Eli nodded at the three second-years and made her way back to the door. None of them attempted to stop her, so she continued down the stairwell and started walking in the direction of the student council room.

* * *

 

On Fridays, Eli and Nozomi often stayed at school late finishing up the work that had piled up over the course of the week. This Friday was no exception.

It was only two weeks into the school year (a school year with the lowest student population in decades, to boot), and yet there were already an annoyingly large number of tasks to accomplish. The majority of the work came from the fact that various clubs had already put forth budget proposals, each of which needed to be examined with a fine-toothed comb before rejection or approval. It did not help that most of the clubs were working off what they predicted their member counts would be after recruiting first-years, with the predictions typically inflated by about twenty students.

It looked like Eli would have to reject the majority of the applications. Nozomi’s _accepted_ pile did not look much larger than hers, either, so it appeared this was not because she was being too harsh with the clubs.

“Say, Elichi?”

Nozomi’s voice startled Eli; they had been working in silence, in the eternally-dark student council room, for about thirty minutes now. Perhaps she had noticed Eli glancing in her direction. “Yes, Nozomi?”

“Those girls were practicing at the shrine yesterday afternoon, too.”

Nozomi, ever the spiritualist, found comfort in volunteering her time as a shrine maiden at Kanda Shrine, in Chiyoda, whenever she could. For the past few days, she had situated herself there in the afternoon and had watched the magical trio run up and down the steps to the shrine as training. She had then invariably gone on to inform Eli of this fact. This was the fourth time Eli had heard the same story.

“Were they?” Eli did not know how to feel about the second-years’ frequent practice outings. On one hand, it meant they were actually taking their magic show idea seriously; on the other hand, it meant they were still going through with the magic show, which Eli found a tough pill to swallow.

Furthermore, she did not understand why Nozomi saw fit to inform her of every movement of the three like some sort of private investigator. She did not need to know exactly how Kousaka had swung her arms as she had run up the stairs. She did not need to know what the exact makeup of Sonoda’s vegetable snack had been, nor had she needed to know of the horrified face Kousaka had made upon seeing it.

She _certainly_ did not need to know about the intricacies of the kinematics of Minami’s torso.

 Alas, Nozomi had seen fit to inform her of all that and more. Over the course of a conversation in the student council room, a brief chat in their classroom, and a discussion held over a candlelit outing in a restaurant (which, like all of the other ones they had always had, had somehow been completely platonic), Eli had learned more about those three girls than she knew about Nozomi.

Granted, Nozomi was hardly an open person. She communicated primarily in glances and facial expressions, and rarely divulged information about her personal life, even to her best friend.

Eli was not particularly interested in another tale from the shrine, especially considering that the tales were starting to become increasingly tall. Yesterday, Nozomi had been recounting the typical story when she had described Minami as possessing a pair of wings. She had immediately corrected herself, but Eli was fairly certain Nozomi was getting a tad too into the storytelling aspect of this situation.

In order to avoid the incoming story, as well as answer some questions of her own, Eli decided to deflect the topic. “Why are you so interested in their training, Nozomi?”

Nozomi’s smile turned mischievous. “Why, I take such an interest in their training so I can tell you all about it, Elichi.”

Had Nozomi spent the past few days annoying her with the escapades of three people whom she barely knew because she had been under the impression Eli had wanted to hear about it? That seemed unlikely at best; Eli had no idea what would have convinced Nozomi of such an idea in the first place. Maybe it was something she had deduced through the pattern of her tea leaves Monday afternoon.

It would probably be best to stop wondering and just ask her. “Did you think I wanted to hear about their training?”

Nozomi’s expression shifted to one of mild amusement. “Not really; I just wanted to make sure you knew they were very serious about their goal.”

So _that_ had been Nozomi’s angle. She should have expected as much, she supposed. Nozomi seemed to be quite invested in the success of this magic club, even going so far as to take their side in their application to use the auditorium. Whenever asked about it, she could cite only her tarot readings as justification for her actions and opinions. Her _cards_ had told her what to do, and so she had done it, no questions asked.

Eli had found herself wondering on more than one occasion when the day would come that Nozomi’s cards would convince her of the virtues of using her friends and family members as tributes to the Great Old Ones.

“Just because they’re practicing doesn’t mean they won’t screw up come Orientation Day.”

At that, Nozomi started digging through her bag. Oh boy. There were only a few things this could mean, and Eli had a feeling she knew exactly which one it would be.

Eli was proven correct when Nozomi pulled out her tarot deck. Eli sometimes found it odd how it could stay in such immaculate condition despite being shuffled more often than a casino poker deck. She supposed Nozomi _did_ treat the deck with a reverence one would usually reserve for some sort of sacred artifact.

Nozomi began shuffling the deck. It was a comparatively loud activity considering the previous quiet of the student council room; it would have made it hard to concentrate on her work if she had actually been attempting to concentrate on her work at the moment.

Eventually, Nozomi seemed satisfied. She carefully placed the deck on the table and drew a card from the top, placing it face-up on the table. She smiled at the result.

“I think they’ll do just fine.”

Eli, curious despite herself after the show Nozomi had made of shuffling a deck and drawing a single card, stood up and walked over to where Nozomi was sitting so that she could get a look at the card she had drawn. She half-expected Nozomi to hide the card in her shirt or pull some other annoying stunt that served only to annoy her (she had done it before), but Nozomi kept the card face up on the table. Eli guessed that the main reason for doing this was out of some sort of attempt to convince her.

Eli stared down at the card, and staring back up at her was The Sun. Of course: The Sun. She had listened to Nozomi more than enough to know that The Sun was essentially the quintessential _good things_ card. That this was enough to convince Nozomi that the trio would come out on top did not surprise her, and, unfortunately, she could not argue with Nozomi over this.

After all, she had promised herself to take Nozomi more seriously.

“I see.” Eli decided a noncommittal answer was probably the correct manner to proceed. She would not write off Nozomi’s prediction, but she maintained the right to remain sceptical of their chances nonetheless.

After all, even Nozomi occasionally admitted her predictions could be inaccurate.

Nozomi took The Sun, as well as the rest of the tarot deck, off the table and placed them gingerly back in her bag. “Now, I’m almost done my work. You?” She turned to Eli, waiting for a response.

Eli nodded. “I just need to look over a couple more forms.”

Nozomi’s eternal smile increased in size. “Good. Do you want to get parfaits again on the way home?”

It was a tradition nearly as old as their friendship: stopping at a local restaurant to order parfaits after school. The restaurant itself was more of an intimate place, sporting dim lights and candles at every table. Despite this, the parfait excursions were always friendly and nothing more. Nozomi and Eli would sit down, order their food, and chat amongst themselves whilst the couples around them dined and whispered sweet nothings.

 “Sure.” She could use an outing like this for a bit of stress-relief, if nothing else.

“Good.”

And then it was back to work for a few minutes, before the two left the school together. Despite the parfait’s theoretical ability to relieve her stress, Eli spent the entirety of their dinner together flipping back and forth between feeling frustration at her relationship with Nozomi going nowhere and feeling worry that the second-years would doom the school to ruin.

The rest of the month was not going to be fun.

* * *

 

**INTERESTING LOCATION:** _Chez_ Takeshi ( **シェイ** [ _Shei_ ] **武** )

**SPECIALTY:** Food Preparation and Sale

**Effectiveness:** C

**Cleanliness:** D

**Popularity:** C

Claims to fame include its romantic atmosphere as well as its rather disappointing faux-French-style cooking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I stole the Takeshi kanji from Beat Takeshi’s name.


	9. Honoka's Bizarre Visit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been, what, two thirds of a year? Seems as good a time as any to update a fanfic that hasn't even passed episode 2.
> 
> No guarantees on any update schedule from here; preparing for stuff like exams and grad school will kick my ass.
> 
> That having been said, I have updated all of the previous chapters of this fic (mostly tiny things like removing a joke for which I didn't care or fixing a typo) and added citations and all that jazz; look at the end notes for chapter 1 for more information.
> 
> I have also added a few little touches that I will continue to utilize going forward.
> 
> Assuming you still remember the gist of the main story, said gist is unchanged.

Nishikino Maki was, by all accounts, a musical person. She had, from a young age, had her musical talents nurtured by various tutors, tested in various competitions, and complemented by various listeners. She was gifted in playing piano, in singing, and in composing, and had been able to practice all of these whilst maintaining a grade average above ninety-five percent all throughout middle school.

In high school it was not much different, though she had only received a small amount of work on which she could have earned marks. She was not exactly confident she would hold top marks in the school by the end of the year (legends spoke of the unattainable record of _the_ perfect Sonoda Umi), but top of her grade was more than within her grasp.

Maki was not a modern-day Bach, but she felt she could certainly grow into a very talented musician if she were given the chance. This was one of the reasons why her parents’ continued insistence that she was going to embark on a path to become a physician come graduation irked her.

It was one of many reasons.

Maki did not have anything special against the idea of becoming a doctor; it seemed a fairly altruistic goal to have. She knew she had what it took to become a doctor, as well, and it was not as though the thought of the training involved was what turned her off the idea. She merely did not have as much interest in the field of medicine as she did in the field of music.

Maki _also_ did not like having her whole life decided for her, but that was not a battle she considered worth fighting. From a young age, Maki had grown up instilled with the idea that her parents’ words were law: to disobey their will was sacrilege. Even as she stumbled her way through the path to becoming a young adult, fighting ingrained instinct was far beyond her capabilities. Or so she thought.

Maki was fairly certain her parents’ wish for her future had little, if anything, to do with altruism in the first place. The Nishikino family had built up a sizable fortune over the years. Most of it was tied up in multiple houses and cabins dotted around the country in various locations nobody ever visited anyway. A sizable chunk of it was liquid or invested, stored in a bank account or a stock or in an actual physical location, like the five-hundred-thousand-or-so yen Maki had lying around in a drawer in the desk next to her bed. The last portion of the Nishikino fortune was tied up in the family hospital. Both of her parents worked there as physicians, and it had been decided since before she had been born that she would one day overtake her father as the director.

Hopefully, she was expected to take it over once her father retired of his own volition and not through a more _direct_ method of succession; one could never know when it came to rich families.

Okay, maybe watching that _Yakuza_ movie with her mother before bed had been a poor decision.

Maki was fairly certain the main, if not only, reason she had been groomed from such a young age to enter the medical field had been as a means to ensure the family legacy, as well as the family fortune, would live on after her parents retired. Maki found this a less-than-compelling reason on which to base her career choice, but her parents’ wishes were her parents’ wishes.

Her thoughts had often turned in this direction ever since starting high school. _Was_ she fine with her future life situation being dictated like this? It could be worse; her parents were only overbearing insofar as it concerned the field into which she would enter come graduation. She was not being married off to some spawn of one of her father’s friends. She was not being prevented from having hobbies outside of academics (though she had really only ever taken to music). She was even allowed to pick _which_ medical discipline she wished to pursue: any branch of physician, from surgeon to anaesthesiologist, was open to her, though she was being _encouraged_ to consider the options which paid the most.

Alas, being mostly free was not the same as being free.

As Maki loitered around the school gate, waiting for her driver, she made sure to cast glances around her in case that Kousaka girl decided to harass her again. She had not gone to the music room after school today, though that had been less out of fear of Kousaka and more because she was expected home as soon as possible. Her change in schedule meant that if the girl had picked today to show up and annoy her, she would have been out of luck, but Maki was still cautious. It had been a little over a week since Kousaka had last shown up, which meant she was overdue for a visit in another attempt to get her onboard with their weird show.

Or was that logic some sort of fallacy?

Maki shook her head. It did not matter one way or the other; it never hurt to be careful.

Her first meeting with Kousaka had been awkward to say the least. Kousaka had shown up out of nowhere, complemented Maki’s music, and then complemented Maki’s appearance. In theory, none of this had been offensive, but Maki had not even known this girl’s name. It had been a lot to take in all of a sudden, and she had been left flustered. Then Kousaka had started asking her something about being a magician, which had come so far out of left field that Maki had decided the best course of action had been to simply leave the room and get away from this girl.

Maki still considered it a perfectly reasonable reaction.

Then, a little under a week later, she had opened the door to her classroom in the morning to find Kousaka and two of her friends standing in front of the class. Apparently, they had come there for her, specifically. She had let them drag her up to the roof (she was still not quite sure _why_ she had done that) and had listened to them introduce themselves.

That had been the first time she had heard Kousaka Honoka’s name. That had _also_ been when she had learned the true identity of _the_ Sonoda Umi. She was a tad less divine in person as compared to the hushed whispers of her classmates. The zealots had described her as possessing _inhuman grace_ and _silky hair_ (Maki was fairly certain _silky_ was the only hair-related adjective of which these people knew) _that was so black it gleamed blue_. Sonoda’s hair _was_ so-black-it-gleamed-blue, but she did not seem any more graceful than the Minami girl who stood next to her.

Sonoda had _also_ spent a large portion of their meeting on the roof performing strange poses in Maki’s general direction from out of the corner of her eye (surely she had been aware Maki possessed peripheral vision), so Maki’s initial impressions of Sonoda had not been ones of admiration.

Apparently, the three second-years had decided their magic show could use a musical backdrop, and had thus asked her if she could compose a song and play it for them at their show.

Maki _had_ been receptive to the fact that Kousaka had apparently enjoyed her music enough to ask her, personally, to play for them. Her good will had ended there. She had come to accept the fact that her music hobby would have to end at some point (her parents had _helpfully_ been ramming that idea down her throat lately), so it would probably be best to simply allow her practice sessions to fade away, instead of attempting to apply herself in a public capacity. It was sad, but she did not want to get her hopes up.

Besides, even if she somehow managed to pursue music later in life, she was worth more than being the piano player for a bunch of amateur magicians. She was well-versed in classical music and had drive and ambition. She was not exactly a prodigy, but she could certainly see herself filling a concert hall with people there to see her play, not to see three misfits saw people in half whilst she would slam her hands on the keys of a piano created for far grander things.

And so, she had rejected their offer. It had come with Kousaka whinging about it, as well as questioning whether Maki could compose music in the first place ( _that_ had cut), but Maki had made herself clear and had left the roof, only to run into the student council president and two of her classmates (Koizumi and Hoshizora, she believed they were).

So far, the magical trio had respected her wishes, but Kousaka seemed like the type of person who did not give up without a long, drawn-out fight. Maki wanted precisely nothing to do with that or any of its consequences. Social interaction was annoying enough as-is; social interaction where the other party was actively fighting with her on something was a nightmare.

Her driver chose that moment to pull up to the school gates. Thankfully, it appeared today would remain Kousaka-free. She quickly got in the car and mentally prepared for arriving home.

After all, today was no ordinary day in the life of Nishikino Maki: today was Wednesday, April nineteenth, the middle of the third week of her first year of high school, and also her birthday.

Today, Maki was sixteen.

* * *

 

The first time Maki had met Kousaka Honoka, she had been sitting in the music room, minding her own business, playing the piano. The third time Maki had met Kousaka Honoka, she had been sitting in the music room, minding her own business, playing the piano.

The day after her sixteenth birthday had not very different from the day before her sixteenth birthday. Being one year older had not hit her like a brick wall: she had no new chronic pains or cricks in joints; she felt no more burdened by the time she had wasted so far in life; the inevitability of her own death seemed no closer.

A rather morbid view of age, but the only people who had ever visited Maki on her birthday had been stuffy old rich people, all with varying levels of moral rot, who had spent the majority of their time there with the sole goal of attempting to annoy Maki as much as possible and to then eat one bite of half of one slice of cake ( _Oh, it’s simply too rich!_ ). These were the types of people whose only contributions to conversations seemed to consist of warnings to those younger than them of the horrors of aging.

Of course, every day that was to come would be one day closer to giving up music, a far more tangible deadline to Maki than senescence. She had decided, fully aware of the irony of the situation, to calm herself by making another after-school trip to the music room to practice the piano some more.

Irony or no, it _had_ calmed her down. She had let out a sigh of relief upon finishing the last song, only to hear a familiar clapping noise coming from the other side of the music room’s door. Lo and behold, a glance had revealed Kousaka staring through the door’s window with a goofy smile on her face.

This time around, the conversation with Kousaka had been… well, _enlightening_ would perhaps be too strong of an adjective. Honoka had opened up asking about her knowledge of some idol group (Sunrise, was it called?) and Maki had, in the manner oh-so-common to musical elitists and the comments section of a Queen song on YouTube, begun to opine on her opinions of idol music. Quoth Maki: “I’m more into classical and jazz; the music that idols sing always sounds like it lacks depth.”

Maki still held this opinion, or at least fragments of it, even as she stared down at the piece of paper in her hands. On it were printed (in a surprisingly meticulous manner for a crumpled-up sheet of paper; surely this was not Kousaka’s writing) lyrics for the song Kousaka was so insistent she compose. She was not sure why she was even considering the idea; amongst other things, were the pieces played during magic performances not supposed to be lyricless?

After baring her opinions to Kousaka (and then asking what her point had been in bringing up idol groups in the first place), they had engaged in a miniature back-and-forth that had somehow ended with Maki performing push-ups whilst smiling (two things she normally attempted to do as little as possible). Apparently, this experience had been meant to humble her into _understanding_ the hardships of the average idol.

Maki had still been left clueless as to the point of this impromptu idol-empathy session.

Sure, perhaps this ordeal had helped her empathize with that idol group (Surprise, maybe? Her English was good, but it was not good enough that she could have been able to pick the name from Kousaka’s stream of babbling). There was nothing _wrong_ with that; she simply had not seen how her newfound knowledge of the plight of the idol was meant to steer her towards composing that stupid song (because no, Maki had _not_ forgotten about Kousaka’s strange request).

However, as Maki thumbed the piece of paper with the lyrics (and a scribbled-out doodle of a butterfly, she noticed) on it, standing in an alcove in Kanda Shrine, listening to Kousaka and company practice their routine (which was not creepy at all, by the way), she felt she was starting to understand.

This had not taken her so long to understand because it was some deep, philosophical conclusion, mind; she had simply been in a half-daze for most of the day as she had followed the trio to the shrine (which was _also_ not creepy at all, by the way), and making sure to notify her parents that she would be late had somehow taken most of her mental power on the walk there.

As Maki read over the lyrics (which, as far as she was concerned, were vapid, repetitive, and had _nothing_ to do with magic), she realized that, though her knowledge of idol music was not nearly as vast as that Koizumi girl in her class, these lyrics were definitely idol-inspired. Perhaps that had been Kousaka’s angle: to sucker her into writing idol-like music for them by getting her interested in idol music in the first place.

If they were so invested in idol music, why not form an idol group instead?

That was strange; why did that thought feel so… _familiar_ to her?

On the subject of familiar thoughts, there was this nagging feeling in the back of Maki’s mind that kept telling her to turn around. That, too, was a strange thought, but it paid well to heed it, lest she be caught listening in on these girls’ conversation in this completely-not-creepy manner.

Upon turning around, Maki found the student council vice-president staring at her from about three metres away. The vice-president was dressed in a shrine maiden outfit and carrying a broom, and had a rather serene smile on her face.

She did not _seem_ like a threat, but Maki was on alert anyway. Most shrine maidens did not sneak up on people in dimly-lit alcoves, and even if she had not been planning anything nefarious, vice-president Toujou was now a witness to Maki’s not-creepy-but-might- _look_ -creepy behaviour.

“They practice rather hard don’t they?” Toujou started talking as though they were already in the middle of a conversation. Ignoring Maki’s suspicious glare, she turned her head in the direction of the trio, though considering their positions all Toujou ended up observing was the wall separating her from them. “Well, at least one of them does.”

Maki did not quite know how to react to this sudden development, so she kept still, perhaps in the hope Toujou’s vision was the type that could only detect moving objects.

“You know, if you’re shy, you can always support them from afar; you mean a lot to them.”

The first two sentences out of Toujou’s mouth could just as easily have been directed at the air rather than at Maki, but what Toujou had just said could only have been directed at her. Maki, resigning herself to having to participate, prepared her most eloquent reply.

“What are you talking about?”

She had _meant_ for her voice to crack there; it sent a _message_.

Toujou chuckled. “I think you know exactly what I mean.” And with that, she walked past Maki and towards the second-years, who were currently running up and down the steps to the tune of Sonoda’s harsh voice.

Maki had never been a particularly big fan of the idea of advice so vague it could hardly be called advice. It would be the easy choice, perhaps even the sane choice, to ignore the words that had just come out of Toujou’s mouth.

After all, if the advice was that important would Toujou have not phrased it in a more intelligent manner?

At the same time, however, there had been a sort of challenge in Toujou’s words, a sort of _even an_ idiot _could figure this out_ that, frankly, Maki was probably imagining, but that ignited something inside of her that made her _want_ to prove herself. Maki, like many young prodigies, had yet to actually form a coherent identity outside of _being smart_ or _being good at music_ , so any challenge to these ideas was tantamount to fightin’ words.

Kousaka had challenged Maki’s ability to compose music, but any attempts to prove Kousaka wrong would have had to involve actually writing that annoying girl music, so she had let that slide. However, figuring out Toujou’s terrible advice would take naught more than brain power, so she immediately turned in the vague direction of her house (mansion, really, but who was counting), ready to figure out this riddle, and act on it if it turned out to be good advice.

Maki _was_ shy; she was not going to deny that. The idea of helping the three girls _from afar_ was what she did not understand; how, exactly, was she supposed to help these girls from afar? She could only guess _from afar_ meant something akin to _not in person_ , which could work for composing, certainly (it was not as though she actually had much else to do when she was at home alone), but composing was only one part of the musical process.

After all, she had heard straight from the horses’ mouths that none of those three girls could work a piano.

Thus, she was also expected to actually _play_ the music, so simply mailing them a copy of the sheet music was unlikely to be of much use.

Actually, now that Maki thought about it, there was a very easy way to get them a sample of Nishikino-made music without having to show up and play for them in person; Maki was not sure why she had not thought of it sooner. In fact, this plan even got her out of having to show up for their magic shows.

Maybe Toujou knew what she was talking about after all.

* * *

 

**INTERESTING LOCATION:** Kanda Shrine ( **神田明神** )

**SPECIALTY:** Religion and Spirituality

**Effectiveness: ???**

**Cleanliness:** A

**Popularity:** B

Claims to fame include its calming atmosphere as well as being an amazing fireworks-watching spot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing to cite here!


End file.
